


The Path that Leads Astray

by Frankincense and Dunmyrrh (rawrawrawr)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Counterfactual, Emerald Knights, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, The Dales still exists
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-05 15:37:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5380640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rawrawrawr/pseuds/Frankincense%20and%20Dunmyrrh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>History is shaped by the people that experience it.  In the moment that the paths reveal themselves, no man is possessed of enough foresight to predict that he will make history, let alone just what sort of history he might make.  But not all trackless paths are unworthy of travel.</p><p>There was the Inquisitor, and her Inner Circle: an elven apostate, a Seeker of Truth, and a dwarven storyteller; a Red Jenny, a Qunari spy, and a Tevinter noble; a spirit of compassion, a Circle mage, a Grey Warden…and an Emerald Knight.</p><p>A retelling of the events of Inquisition in an alternate universe where the Dales never fell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shemassan

 

It was his commander that told him to take watch over the battle.  The old man had no way with words, but he was of keen intellect, and he knew that the perch his archers now occupied would have been abandoned as the elves fell back into the city.  “What will be the first of many losses,” he had growled out at the meeting over the war table.  All the better to accomplish this with a handful of snipers bunched together on a half-destroyed balcony.

They had gotten lucky, after the Chantry involved itself in this war.  The elven armies were surprisingly coordinated.  Difficult targets with unorthodox tactics, but sometimes that was what it took to win a war.  Some small part of him admires that.  He tamps it down.

These were the people _slaughtering_ his countrymen.  The pagans that had captured Val Royeaux!  No sympathy could be afforded to them, not even admiration.  Idly, he wonders how much of the Grand Cathedral still stands, if her clerics are sequestered in a safe house somewhere away from the fighting, or held prisoner within the walls of the palace.  He wonders how much longer it will take to complete its construction now.

Before him the battle unfolds.  He watches it all from above, and does his best to intervene on behalf of his comrades when circumstance finds them at the end of a sharp blade.  Most of all he keeps watch, scanning the throng of screaming warriors, ever watchful for an important target.  It takes a single arrow to win a war, he reminds himself.  All he needs to do is bury it into the right person.

The human takes a deep breath.  The world around him sharpens, his vision gaining clarity of purpose as the Chant ebbs forth, galvanizing every inch of him, from the tension in his jaw right down to the tips of his fingers as they find the familiar tickle of the fletching cradled snug in his quiver.  _Those who oppose thee shall know the wrath of heaven._

He exhales and feels the words on his tongue, imagines the Maker’s Bride there with him, guiding his hands to glory.  _Field and forest shall burn, the seas shall rise and devour them._   Those slaves who had been freed by Andraste’s compassion and grace have lost their way.  There is but one way to save them now, one path to redeem the heathen elves now turned on His children.

In the distance, illuminated by the light of a brilliant burst of sun gleaming off his silverite armor, is the leaf-eared commander, the fleshy tendons in his throat jutting out with the force of his blasphemous warcry, bared for all the world to see.  The chevalier knows instinctually there is some two hundred feet of distance between them.  _The wind shall tear their nations from the face of the earth._   All this comes to him like a revelation, shakes his mind with the force of enlightenment and channeled into the outward focus of an archer.

Practice comes to him even through the buzzing of his thoughts, nocking the arrow snug against the string of his bow.  He checked a hundred times before his unit left for Val Royeaux, knows it to his standards.  It will hold fast against the strain, persevere as they two always have, come back to form as they always have.  And from that perseverance will emerge the work of a peacemaker.  _Lightning shall rain down from the sky._

He pulls the bowstring back, taut as the muscles of his straining arm.  The tension does not discourage him.  He takes aim, adrenaline singing, a thousand worries flitting through his head.

He inhales.

The world falls away from him, nothing in his mind but the Chant and the focus to let an arrow find its mark, least of all the tickle of an eastward breeze against his nape.  _They shall call out to their false gods, and find silence…_

He lets the arrow fly free with a final prayer to the Maker for true aim.

 

* * *

 

And so it was that Ser Yves de Chevac shot wide of his mark, missing the elven commander by a matter of centimeters.

The elven armies combatting the liberation effort, inspired by the survival of their commander, fought even harder.  He rallied his troops and repelled the holy armies of the Chantry, securing Val Royeaux once again.  The second loss of their capitol demoralized Orlesian chevaliers.

In a matter of years the Exalted March would grind to a halt, both sides too worn to continue their warring which had cooled to skirmishes.  The Empress of Orlais and the Queen of the Dales would meet in a small town on the border between their nations for talks of peace, an invitation to which Divine Renata I refused.  While this would not cause mutual understanding between them, man and elf came to agreement on conditions for peace.  The original borders of each would be respected, with the Dalish returning the captured cities of Montsimmard and Val Royeaux to Orlais.  In exchange, Orlais agreed to respect the sovereignty of the Dales and the right of the Emerald Knights to enforce monarchic edicts within Dalish borders – edicts which included a number of unsavory possibilities for proselytizers and Templars caught in Dalish territory.

It was counted as a stalemate by the Empress’ court, though her political rivals touted it a stunning loss.  Several attempts on her life would be made, none successful.

Divine Renata I would strike the Canticle of Shartan from the Chant of Light.  She went on to spend the rest of her incumbency eradicating anything that depicted elves in a positive light.  Thousands of catalogues of elven culture and language were lost in this rampage, a sore spot for many scholars at the University of Orlais.

In the Dales, Queen Ellisana would become one of the most beloved rulers throughout all of Dalish history.  She was praised for her political and military shrewdness, compared often to a fierce mother bear protecting her cubs from vile human poachers.

Vaharel, the Emerald Knight that oversaw the successful capture of Montsimmard, was crowned King following the death of the heirless Queen Ellisana in 2:30 Glory.  He would take a hardline stance against incursions by Orlesian missionaries, bringing the Dales back into isolationist form.  The Glory Age would close without further incident.

As for Ser Yves de Chevac, his fate was unknown; perhaps left to the general anonymity afforded to a chevalier with humble origins, or removed altogether in order for the Empress to avoid the shame of his association to her court.  In the Dales he became known as “He Who Missed His Mark.”  Many unflattering tales of bumbling human archers were written in the wake of the Second Exalted March, most infamous among them _Shemassan_.  Written in 3:28 Towers by Ralaferin, _Shemassan_ is a satirical account of the hypothetical Third Exalted March from the perspective of the fictional chevalier Ser Archer de Yvain (largely inspired by the historical Ser Yves), depicting most of the historical Orlesians as caricatures in comparison to the competent and sensible elves.  The title is a portmanteau, able to be interpreted both as the self-bestowed nickname “Quick Arrow” of the main character, and “Human Arrow,” as many of the battles are lost by the incompetency of Yvain.  It also plays off of the title of a Dalish legend of Fen’Harel, _Felassan_ – the Slow Arrow.  _Shemassan_ became Ralaferin’s magnum opus, and is today considered the greatest novel of its age.  Orlais, as one might imagine, took less kindly to its popularity.  The novel is still banned beyond its borders and not even the University of Orlais is permitted to be in possession of copies.

So life continued, none in the Dales any wiser of how close their lives came to being changed irrevocably.  The Temples were permitted to continue their efforts in restoring the lost arts of Elvhenan.  Special focus was given by the High Keeper of Dirthamen to the restoration of the elven language at the opening of the Towers Age.  Queen Tillahnnehn made the edict late into the Towers age that the elven language would be spoken and written exclusively by all elves of the Dales.  This was a largely successful endeavor due to the pervasive involvement of the Temples in daily life, though the results would not show significantly for another century or more.

When darkspawn assaulted Montsimmard in 3:10, the current monarch ignored the requests of the Grey Wardens to assist in their repulsion.  As the Third Blight culminated in the final battle at Hunter Fell, the Dales looked on, unconcerned.  This was perceived as a human matter, one that the Dalish saw no reason to involve itself in.  More likely the monarch, known for their particularly strong distaste for the Chantry, did not wish to associate itself with a historically Andrastian organization such as the Grey Wardens.

The Towers Age ended with an increase of violence along the Dalish-Orlesian borders as a number of Templars attempt to arrest escaped mages, though many Emerald Knights’ accounts detailed that their interest was more in the “theft of free elvhen mages.”  No validity can be associated to either sides’ claims, but nonetheless the Emerald Knights expulsed a number of Templars within the region.  The Chantry, too busy with the fallout of the Schism, issued nothing more than a strongly-worded public condemnation of their actions.

Tensions ebbed and flowed entering the Black Age.  In 4:58 King Anumarel fell ill and died by winter, with no familial or named successor.  Panic arose over rumors that Orlais planned to send troops to capture Halamshiral amidst the chaos.  The late king’s advisor, Manathi, was a sensible woman and predicted that this would be an issue in the foreseeable future.  She used her influence to call for a meeting of the High Keepers and the most prominent nobles of the time.  They gathered in the capitol to discuss a replacement.  After two weeks of debate, Artaleth Ghilain – a young noble and descendant of Inquisitor Ameridan – was named successor.  They ascended the throne and marked the following year with their first monarchic decree: the establishment of a body that would handle lines of succession from then on.

This body, known as the _Hahren’al_ or “Council of Elders,” originally consisted of some thirty seats, seven of which were allotted to the High Keeper of each Temple, and thirteen to Keepers of the Temples with the most adherents.  The remaining ten belonged to a body of nobles, one from each province.  These nobles were required to be of a specific age, typically what would be considered an elder by Dalish standards.  Nobles were appointed based upon wealth, technically, as it was easier for wealthy elders to hold the greatest respect by the body of electors.  The process of voting became known as _Arlathvhen_ , held every ten years.  _Arlathvhen_ would become a Dalish holiday, with a heavy focus on community and togetherness.  Here, the heads of each household would debate upon those qualified, usually appointed for life.  At the outset of the Council’s creation, peasants were not normally permitted to attend, particularly in wealthier provinces.  This would change in several centuries with the revision of the _Hahren’al_ by Queen Fadha.

The Monarch Ghilain would oversee the invasion of the Heartlands by Orlais in 4:80 Black, a four-year campaign that is referred to as The War of Greed by the Dalish.  It ended with the Treaty of Montsimmard, which ceded Vhenadahlen to Orlais and ceased hostilities.  Vhenadahlen is presently known as Val Foret, and has a high population of elven individuals.  The elves of Val Foret were forced to convert to Andrastianism and are a point of contention between Orlais and the Dales to this day.

Not all elves were Dalish, and the outbreak of the Fourth Blight would only serve to reinforce this fact to Thedosians.  Garahel and his sister Isseya were born to a family in an alienage – those slums of human cities that elves must always be sequestered to.  Their parents were part of a small diaspora of elves, some escaping Tevinter’s slavery for a better life, others simply seeking their fortunes outside of the Dales.  Either way, they would almost always find disappointment.  Humans were reluctant to give employment to an elf, excepting those jobs that they themselves did not wish to do.  Elves faced exploitation and oppression on the basis of their race, lumped together as a single “other” even though most were vastly different from one another in origin.  Those elves would be known as city elves, and none would be more renowned than the Grey Warden Garahel.

“Proper” Dalish elves did not feel beholden to the provision of safety for those outside their borders, just as any Orlesian member of the Imperial court would do for an expatriate in Nevarra.  That lack of immediate kinship notwithstanding, they were more accommodating to the otherwise marginalized elves, and could arguably provide them with a welcoming environment, if nothing else substantial.  Some individuals were of a much more liberal disposition of what made one elvhen, and would base it most of all on the shape of their ears.  It was wondrously auspicious timing, then, that Queen Evanariel would be crowned sovereign of the Dales at the opening of the Exalted Age.

A long-time friend of the city elves that had fled Tevinter, Evanariel spent a good portion of her career as a writer cataloging the experiences of former slaves taking refuge in Halamshiral.  She became extremely popular with the poor when her merchant father passed, leaving her as heir to the family estate.  Rather than focus her efforts on increasing her riches, Evanariel had her seneschal run the mercantile affairs.  She dedicated all of her free budget to the sponsorship of city elves in the process of their naturalization.  Even the nobles had a fondness for the soft-hearted maiden, with one writing of her, “There is a quality to her that goes beyond description.  The people trust her instinctually, and each stranger she meets walks away convinced of newfound friendship.  I am convinced that the young Lady could charm an assassin out of fulfilling his contract.”

The Dales had begun to run into the obvious issues of isolationism long before this time.  Its power waning, many longed for a change.  Evanariel, with her boundless youth and mystical wisdom, inspired hope and found allies wherever she turned by wit and charm alone.  None were surprised when the _Hahren’al_ named her successor to Monarch Ghilain.

Queen Evanariel’s first edict, predictably, was to open the borders to foreign ambassadors and merchants.  To appease the more conservative members of the peerage, she continued restrictions on Chantry officials and upheld the law that made proselytization of Andrastianism punishable by torture and expulsion.  Among those that were the first to gain audience with the Queen was a representative of the Grey Wardens – the Warden Garahel, or so they say.  Though many historians speculate as to the nature of their relationship, it is generally a human assumption that they had a sexual and/or romantic bond.  Evanariel was a woman verging on her eighties by the Exalted Age’s start, and possessed of no children.  It was more likely that the liberal-minded Queen saw him as a friend, or perhaps subconsciously as a surrogate.  Regardless the two are known to have gotten along well from the first that they met.

Thus, when the Fourth Blight broke out, it surprised none that she would pledge assistance to the Wardens.  The Dales was blessed to have few darkspawn incursions.  It took less than a year to secure borders, and as soon as Evanariel had assuaged her people’s sense of safety, she rallied them to the cause.   Emerald Knights represented the smallest portion of troop donations, dispatched to the Free Marches and the Anderfels as skirmishers.  Many were present at the demise of Archdemon Andoral, and spoke well of the Wardens they had fought beside.  To the Dalish, it was unthinkable that any foreigner would allow an elf to be in a position of power.

For Evanariel’s part, it was another sad reality of the longevity that the Dalish had slowly reclaimed.  Her melancholy over the death of Garahel spoke to the immense amount of empathy she possessed – for as quickly as she attracted people to her, she must then have felt equal attachment.  In 5:25 Exalted, the Queen signed Grey Warden treaties that bound the Dales to a promise of the provision of aid in the coming Blights.  It was the first treaty signed with a foreign body that had not been a result of war in several centuries.

A known patron of the arts, Queen Evanariel commissioned the sculptor Renadien in the creation of a monument that would honor the sacrifice of the Grey Warden Garahel.  It was completed in 5:34 – a massive work of the Grey Warden riding his prized griffon, angling his bow upward at an invisible foe.  The monument would become one of the most prized works of art in the gardens of Var Sahaminan, the royal palace, and became Renadien’s most famous work.  Unfortunately for the Queen, she never has the chance to see it.  Her death in 5:30 Exalted at the age of 112 is received with a period of mourning, but her legacy lives on in the beginning of the Age of Velvet, so-called for the softening of relations between the Dales and the rest of Thedas.  Evanariel’s family estate was dissolved of its assets and became the largest public library in the Dales.  Over the remainder of the Exalted Age, the appointed heirs of each monarch would be selected by the _Hahren’al_ as successor, only to die after ten to twenty years on the throne.  This was known as the Time of Troubles.

This trend of old monarchs dying in short order continued into the next Age up until the death of King Theran.  Half of the Council of Elders supported his appointed successor, while the rest suggested a popular noble.  They remain deadlocked for three months in 6:27 Steel.  Tensions became as high as to spill over and begin a three-year war of succession.  A third faction arises in the midst of the chaos in support of a common-born woman, Fadha, surprised the populace with their popularity and unexpected victory.  Fadha quickly brought the Dales to form and reinstituted the _Hahren’al_ with reforms, making it easier for the appointments made by the people to hold weight.  Fortunately for the Dales, they faced no outside threats, the world too concerned by the growing threat of invaders from Par Vollen.

Queen Fadha had a reputation amongst her people as a “free spirit,” so to speak.  She was perhaps the most storied of all that ascended the throne, having been a former First to the Temple of Sylaise in Bellanaris.  Rumors abounded about the reason for her abandonment of the Temple.  It was a widespread belief that she had been expelled by the High Keeper for unorthodox views.  Within context this would seem the most logical of all rumors.

Over her admittedly short reign, Fadha would “modernize” the Dalish institutions.  Three years after her coronation, the Queen declared that she would allow companionate couples to bond.  She then proceeded to grant minor nobility status to her lover’s family, Lavellan, and married her – all in the same day.  While none within the Dales took issue with such couples being permitted to bond, marriage was generally seen as an institution of noble business, one meant to secure bloodlines.  This change to the understanding of bonding rituals was, as the Queen stated, “a revitalized tradition rooted in the focus on love and companionship that we have lost sight of.  Surely our ancestors would smile to see this understanding of ritual as deeper than a contractual obligation.”

What incensed the nobility most of all was her appointment of Lavellan as her political advisor.  Lavellan was a common-born seamstress, with no knowledge of politics.  The decision to appoint her was an obvious sleight to the former advisor, Lady Sabrae, who had suggested that Queen Fadha be less hasty in her reform campaign.

Ten days after her marriage, Fadha declared a war on crime, and had half of the Emerald Knights rerouted from their current duties to this end – a crusade that would last over a year to little success.  She made efforts to further reform the _Hahren’al_ by giving them the power to deny a monarch’s declaration of war.  The next year, she reformed the Oath of Emerald that each Knight takes upon their dubbing, requiring a section on a vow of poverty and making it illegal for them to hold any title beyond their knighthood.  This had the immediate effect of repossessing many holdings of Emerald Knights to the crown, and bound them more thoroughly to the lords they were sworn to.

Her series of increasingly radical decrees was tolerated up until she attempted to formally dissolve the seats given to the Temples on the Council of Elders.  The outrage resounded for a full year, until in 6:44 Fadha stepped down from the throne on the grounds that it was clear the populace did not wish her to hold power any longer – she had done all she could for them.  She retired with Lavellan to their shared estate in Bellanaris, where she would subsequently pass away five decades later in her sleep.  Lavellan had been far younger than the late queen.  She never took another lover, and passed the gifted estate on to her younger sister after her death.

The _Hahren’al_ sought a balance with their next appointment, and thus Lady Sabrae of Halamshiral would ascend the throne.  Perhaps believing that the former monarch had her heart in the right place, Sabrae chose not to enforce the decrees but made no attempts to outright overturn them.  She would spend the rest of her incumbency attempting to make amends for the exorbitant amount of money taken from the treasury to fund Fadha’s well-intentioned schemes.  Such would be the legacy of the Steel Age.

To the Dales, the Storm Age was little more than a time of stalled relations with the human nations.  As much of Thedas busied itself with the Qunari, the Dalish saw it as a _shemlen_ issue that they had no business – let alone interest – in getting caught up in.  Thus did the Storm Age become a revival of Dalish culture overseen by the King, with many discoveries made as to the old ways of Elvhenan.  A record number of excursions (many of dubious legality) into bordering countries were launched as expeditioners and Temple scholars sought out elven ruins for study.  None were any wiser about the events of the coming age.

Emperor Reville was regarded as mad by most, and that is what many Dalish believed.  “Only a human would conquer a country in order to conquer another” was a popular phrase in the Blessed Age.  In 8:08 he launched an invasion on the Dales.  Caught unprepared, the country was all but captured by 8:25, excepting several southern holdouts and Halamshiral, which remained a bastion throughout Orlesian occupation.  Reville would move on to conquer Ferelden in 8:24, his success owed to the traitorous banns.

King Mahariel was appointed to the throne in the midst of the resistance.  A daring and well-spoken Keeper of the Temple of Mythal, he was selected for his popularity with the people, and personally trained a number of new recruits as Emerald Knights.  What Mahariel lacked in military stratagem-crafting he made up for with his charisma.  The occupied territories responded to his coronation as they would a rallying cry.  Knowing that Orlais would be forced into the difficult decision to hold either the Dales or Ferelden, he pressed for a makeshift army of civilian rebels and the well-trained Emerald Knights to divide Orlesian attention using asymmetrical warfare tactics to wear their morale down.  This sort of skirmishing continued up until the liberation of Enasalan in 8:48 Blessed, where the fighting was as fierce as to kill a great deal of the Dalish militia.  King Mahariel died in the retaking of the city, widowing his wife – and caused the orphaning of his newborn child shortly thereafter when his heartbroken wife disappeared shortly after giving birth.

Mahariel’s appointed heir, his military advisor Gisharel, went undisputed as successor by the wartime _Hahren’al_ and was crowned the same day as his death.  He oversaw the remainder of the resistance.  Orlais was left with a single stronghold in the Dales.  The occupation of Bellanaris was broken in 8:64 with minimal resistance from the overburdened Orlesian armies.

No attempts were made to assist Ferelden in its own war against their common aggressor.  Instead, the Dales reacted to this as a reminder of human hatred.  Once again the borders were closed, secured and heavily patrolled.  There would be limited contact between the Dales and its neighbors for many years as they recovered from the cost of warfare – research delayed for decades, valuable artworks and culturally significant landmarks destroyed.  Many had been systematically slain or forcibly converted.  To this day there is a great deal of resentment toward Orlesians by the Dalish, most of all because many were alive to experience the reality of their aggression.

By 9:11 Dragon the borders were slowly reopened, if still tightly watched, and relations normalized to their icy and practical nonexistence.  The Dales would once again begin to send its scholars out in caravans called _aravels_ employed by Keepers – often accompanied by their apprentices – and teams of scholars or merchants with them.  Mercenaries and trappers were hired as escorts to keep the caravans safe, with some sent by order of the crown accompanied by Emerald Knights.  The Knights could be requested for protection as well, but most remained in the Dales, too occupied by their typical duties.

One of these _aravels_ was led by Keeper Marethari, among them the child of the late King Mahariel.  In 9:30 Dragon two of her guardians discovered the elven ruin that led them to Ferelden held a tainted mirror, and fell ill with the Taint.  Mahariel would survive only by undertaking the Joining.  Shortly after losing Tamlen and Mahariel, Keeper Marethari would lead her people to the safety of the Free Marches, and would not have the resources to return to the Dales for a number of years, over which time she and her First are estranged due to differences of opinion.  Merrill’s consequent exile resulted in her befriending the future Champion of Kirkwall.

Another caravan in Ferelden, led by Keeper Zathrian, was encountered by the Grey Warden Mahariel.  They had been pinned down in the Brecilian Forest for some time, and in exchange for assisting Zathrian with curing his team of the disease caused by Witherfang’s werewolves, promised to procure the Dalish aid so desperately needed to combat the Fifth Blight.  Zathrian’s First honored the promise he made even after his death.  Despite her city elf background, Lanaya was successful in rallying aid for the Warden when she returned home, where she would remain after the Fifth Blight.

History is shaped by the people that experience it.  Just as a Warden’s survival hinged on a Witch of the Wilds, so too did the world hold its breath as Hawke defended the mages at the Gallows.  In the moment that the paths reveal themselves, no man is possessed of enough foresight to predict that he will make history, let alone just what sort of history he might make.  Ser Yves de Chevac could be certain of many things, but a sudden breeze was not one of them.

And so it is that a single arrow can determine the course of history.

The year is 9:41 Dragon.  Divine Justinia V has called for a meeting between the mages and Templars, to discuss the possibility of peace between the warring factions.  What shall happen?  That is what many wonder, none more so than the youngest Trevelyan, idle as the thought may be.  She attends out of duty, but mostly to appease the incessant nagging of her mother.  The young Mistress Trevelyan crosses a sea to escape the stifling goodwill of her family, ignorant of the course she has set herself upon.  How could she have felt the world as it changed around her?


	2. Mountains Never Meet

Dorian grimaces as the aftertaste of the swill this establishment dares to call wine hits the back of his tongue.  Barely palatable going down, it is far worse when reminding him of what he just swallowed.  Honestly, he should know better than to trust a seedy bar in a backwater town to carry decent ports by now, even Orlesian ones.  Beggars cannot be choosers, he supposes, and downs the contents of his filthy mug in one long, vinegary pull.  The vile concoction settles heavy in his stomach, much like disappointment.  At least the cottony filter settling over his mind is a welcome familiarity.

Most of the taverns the Altus has stayed in since parting ways with his homeland were much the same.  Funny how the little things remain constant – even a small village on the outskirts of Orlais such as this, despite its disarray and general lack of cleanliness, has business.  Priorities are right no matter where you go, people always looking to drink their coin away when the day ends.

For a border town like the one he encountered earlier this day, he supposes, this should be considered a rather nice establishment.  There _are_ less sticky surfaces, and the upholstery has far fewer stains of dubious origin, so he feels obliged to remain civil.  Certainly there is a charm to the community, if one enjoys that rustic far-from-civilization atmosphere.  Dorian could never see the appeal in austere living.  What was the point, having all these stone cottages with their wooden rooves?  The quaint fascination with nature apparently led to their living close to the land, and all the authentic rotted floorboards and rat infestations that went along with such a lifestyle.

A small part of him wishes he had taken the boat across the Waking Sea as he had initially planned.  The rest of him violently rebels at the very idea.  Really, this was for the best.  Sometimes the best path is the one least travelled, that was what his father said – long ago, when his good opinion mattered more than anything.  Maybe if he reminds himself enough it will begin to feel like the truth.  It does nothing to remember all that he has given up, all the sharp words and oppressive silences, and for all he suffered, to wonder at its worth.

Nothing like a little doubt has ever stopped him before, and he would sooner be damned than allow seasickness and bad wine to send him limping back home with his proverbial tail tucked between his legs.  This was about more than his pride.

This was about putting everything wrong with Tevinter back to sorts.

“Can I get you another?”

He looks up at the bartender, a husky fellow with tired blue eyes and a woodcutter’s beard.  Were he closer to his preferences Dorian might test the waters a bit, see how far his luck gets him.  As it stands the simple iron band on the man’s left hand is more than enough to turn him off from the idea.  “One more glass wouldn’t hurt.”  He flashes a charming grin on instinct and tries not to feel offended when his companion does not return the gesture.

Inwardly he is counting the total of his tab.  The finances in his coinpurse are running low, and he is loath to spend another night roughing it in the elements if he can help it.  Let alone face the embarrassment of finding a creative way to get out of debt with a provincial barkeep.  What he has will have to be enough to keep him afloat as he makes his way to Ferelden.  He has already lost enough to bad judgment and lack of preparation, and he would rather his dignity not be among those things for sale.

The man pulls an opaque green bottle of blown glass from beneath the table, pulling its cork and refilling Dorian’s mug with a generous amount of terrible wine.  It seems that he is not the only one aware of its less than satisfactory quality, if his server’s soured expression as he replaces the cork and the bottle under the counter is anything to judge by.

There is honestly no point in thanking the man, especially not when Dorian is the one that has to put up with the abysmal flavor.  Instead he inclines his head, prying the mug from the grimy countertop and doing his best not to grimace as he takes as large a drink as is socially polite.  He is stared at the entire time.  Apparently these commoners had not a single clue when it came to etiquette.  When Dorian has placed the cup back onto the ring-shaped stain where he originally left it, the barkeep asks, “What brings you to Red Crossing?”

“Just passing through.”  He does not particularly wish to reveal his motivations.  “I have plans to leave come morning.”

Judging by the pointed once-over his server does, it is likely that his withholding information was unnecessary.  Anything different will automatically stand out in a place such as this.  “If you’re a mage, might be best you did so.  We don’t want trouble around these parts.”

Dorian schools his expression into careful neutrality.  _This is not home,_ he reminds himself.  _People here kill people like you!_   He replies in a low, measured tone, “I can be as harmless as you convince me to be.  So long as you don’t give me reason to, I’ll cause no trouble.”

Their eyes meet for but a moment, but it is long enough for the mage to see the telltale signs of apprehension in the barkeep’s gaze.  “Like I said, don’t want any trouble.  You pay, you’re welcome to stay.”

He does not let out a breath so audible as to show his relief, but the tension he had unwittingly carried in his shoulders ebbed away with the recession of air from his body.  Dorian takes to his drinking once again.

Silence reigns between them, the only two on the premises at this afternoon hour.  More will be arriving as the sun sets, eager to buy cheap ale and warm wine, small rewards for thankless toiling in their endless fields.  The atmosphere has begun to feel comfortable again until the illusion is shattered by the barkeep, apparently unconcerned with fulfilling his duties as proprietor of this establishment.  That _would_ explain the slack hygienic standards.  “You headed to Ferelden for that Conclave thing?”

So they have heard about the Conclave here too.  It is not as though Dorian is about to tell him _actually, good ser, I’m chasing after my former mentor, a magister who has lost his mind and joined a Tevinter cult!_   Small lies here and there can hardly hurt.  “Yes,” he nods, absentmindedly swirling the contents of his cup as though it were a wine worth savoring.  “Nasty business, this whole war.  I should like to see it end, if an end is possible.”

That seems to catch the taverner’s attention.  “Yeah?  My nephew was a mage.”  He opens his mouth to speak, but pauses, catches the words before he can say them.  A quick scan of the room is completed as though to be sure that they are the only two within earshot.  Then, in a conspiratorially low murmur, “Templars took him away when he was just a boy.  Wife’s sister cried for weeks.”

It is strange that he should be told such a personal anecdote from a practical stranger, but Dorian feels a pang of sympathy nonetheless.  These are the sorts of stories that further the traditional beliefs instilled in him from birth, that the southern Circles are little more than prisons, and the Chantry their jailors.  There are no words adequate enough for that kind of heartache.  “My sympathies,” Dorian offers.

The man grunts in wordless acknowledgement.  “Anyway, just wanted to say we’ve had a lot of your kind passing through for the same reason.  Most get turned back at the border and have to take the boats in Val Royeaux, so I help ‘em when I can.  Hoping one day my nephew might stop by.”

His heart lurches uncomfortably in his chest at the newfound information.  There is no way he can afford to head back toward Val Royeaux!  Dorian lets out a groan and leans forward, stopping himself at the last moment from sinking physically onto the counter.  “ _Fantastic_ news!  Why exactly are the elves turning people back at the borders?”

A shrug is his answer, coupled with, “S’normally like this.  Elves are suspicious of us humanfolk causing trouble in their land.  They only let you through if you got permission.  Most people go ‘round by ferry just to make it easier for themselves.”  He takes another one of those strange pauses before divulging even stranger bits of information.  “Like I said, though, I help you mages when I can.  Normally the border guards are real tight on patrols, but they have a few blind spots.  Places they rarely check, you know?”

It seems Dorian is left with little other choice.  “Please, do continue.”

The barkeep’s eyes glimmer.  For a moment he can swear there is mischief in that gaze, but then, perhaps it is a simple trick of the light.

 

 

That is how Dorian of House Pavus finds himself outside the small town of Red Crossing with the intention of sneaking across the border like some Maker-forsaken criminal.  All around him the world is hushed by hidden crickets singing their furtive sonatas, the murk of night washing the forest with deep, muted shadows.  What he can see is by the fickle grace of the moon overhead.  She is a mere crescent of herself, consumed by some obsession of celestial nature, the rotation of the world around a simple fact of nature as some radical theorists have posited.  It was never his prerogative to try for such an understanding with the heavenly bodies, far too engrossed in the studies of time, how a mage might bend it to his will.  And when it was not the research of his mentor which concerned him, there were of course more…personal matters to attend to.

Whatever twist of fate had persuaded him to cross the wooden bridge constructed over the brook outside of town, he was certain only of one thing – its undoubtedly cruel nature.  He was not made for clandestine hiking trips in the boondocks of Thedas!  Even then, he had to wonder why the Dalish so jealously guarded their borders.  Was it the convention of their people, an affectation of elven custom which caused them to keep people away from a copse of trees?

The edge of the forest looms, foreboding, and every step toward it is resisted with a palpable atmosphere of foreboding.  It was not often that Dorian felt welcome, however charming and well-to-do he might be.  If he could charm his way into the Archon’s reception, a sea of towering trees would not stop him.  Their branches, like old knobbled fingers, knock together with the force of a breeze at his back.  A quaint notion, that the world would be pushing him to go onward.

Assured of his purpose, taking comfort in the knowledge he has armed himself with, Dorian takes a deep breath.  _It’s just a forest,_ he reminds himself.  _There’s no reason to be so anxious, Pavus._

He steps over the fictitious threshold and breathes as the trees rustle in the night air.

The sense that he is an unwelcome guest does not dissipate, but at least his eyes have begun to adjust to the failed light.  With each careful step forward the trackless forest floor becomes sharper, blades of grass more defined.  The bark on every tree trunk he passes is excluded from such distinction, patterns refusing to reveal themselves to the stranger as he passes them by.

It is a fool’s task to navigate by moonlight, but what choice is he left with?  Each passing minute reminds him that he could just as easily die of starvation as at the hands of violent bandits or overzealous Emerald Knights.  He shivers and tries to remember the markers outlined to him by the barkeep back in the village.  _Ten minutes of pacing in, walk past the fifteenth tree…or was it fifteen trees in, walk for ten minutes?_

So caught up in his recollection of a set of nonsensically obscure directions was Dorian that he failed to watch his footing.  The tangled roots of the wilds remind him that they are not to be ignored, and it is his lot to momentarily lose his sense of balance as the toe of his boots catches on one in the dark.  He makes a concerted effort not to fall over, flailing his arms in what is sure to be a dramatic display of ineptitude as he attempts to right himself by scrabbling for purchase against the rough grain of the nearest tree’s bark.  The only noise he releases is a hiss of breath leaving him, a reflection of his shock.

When the worst of his episode has passed, Dorian steps away from the offending tree.  He takes a moment to glower at it and imagines it as little more than kindling.  This has reminded him _exactly_ _why_ he hates camping.  Throw in a few poisonous spiders and the unavailability of warm, sanitary bathing water and this would be a place fit only for the worst offenders of Senatorial law.

Brushing the bits of bark from his manchettes, he sends one last glower over his shoulder before carrying on.  All of his cursing is relegated to his head, a poor substitute for the audible thing – the soothing comes in the action of sounding out the syllables, the release in the harsh treatment of the expletives and their phonetic units which unchain him from mind-numbing frustration.

Childish as it might be, he all but stomps away, counting fifteen paces in his head.  _Or was it ten?_

His folly is not in his tripping, but in the action that follows.  Being as flustered as the mage was, it was not until after he had made the critical error did he notice his footing.  All it took was a single branch underfoot to draw attention.  He steps hard enough to break it, the snap echoing through the empty woods.  That familiar feeling of dread returns heavily to Dorian’s shoulders.

 _Relax,_ he reminds himself, sucking in a breath through his nose.  _Panicking won’t do you any favors._

All of that confidence building swiftly flies out the window when he hears a baleful cry in the distance.

Dorian starts once again, pausing mid-step to ponder the direction and source of the sound.  It was not so far away as to assuage his concerns, and judging from the angle, it originated from somewhere on his left.  His time as a vagrant wandering across Thedas has at least given him enough knowledge to discern that the source of his momentary panic was a wolf howling.  No answering cry has followed it, so Dorian counts himself lucky.  A lone wolf is hardly worth the worry.

Reassured of his safety, he treks on, only to stop a few moments later.  In the darkness before him is a vague shape, no more than the suggestion of a shadow.  It is enough to give him pause.  His fingers twitch at the instinctual thrum of mana, a soothing caress that surges somewhere just beneath his skin.  _To the Void with silence!_   If this is to be his death, then he will at least know the face of his killer.  “Show yourself,” he commands, the same authoritative tone he adopted from the few occasions he was allowed to accompany his father to Senate meetings.

From out of the darkness steps a wolf.  It is a fairly large creature, several hands high at the haunches, its coat mostly white cloaked with deep grays and blacks around the ears and spine up to the space between its eyes and halfway down its narrow snout.  That is as much as he can distinguish of the creature in the obscuring blanket of night.  Most of the wolves Dorian has encountered in his travels were scrawnier.  Perhaps as a consequence they were more desperate.

Immediately, he knows something is off about this one.  First of all, it is alone.  That in and of itself would be strange, but compounded with the factor that it has yet to attack him would suggest that its bravery around humans stems from a source not born of starvation.  He thinks he would have noticed mange.  This one is entirely too composed to be afflicted with disease, its fur sleek and clean.

Most of all, it is the eyes that tip him off.  While the lack of light does not allow him to see any more than a coal-black stare, there is something remarkably odd in the way it looks at him.  It has made no efforts to investigate or run away, no attempts to attack or ingratiate itself to him.  The creature just stands in his path and stares, as though observing a curious specimen.

He is not certain whether to find this soothing or worrisome.  “Ah, hello there.  Do you mind stepping out of the way?  I would hate to keep my friend waiting.”

The beast does little more than blink.

“Really, though, I must be on my way.  Surely you understand how it is, being as wolf-y as you are.”  Dorian attempts to take a step forward, which is precisely when the wolf decides to fold its ears back and snarl.  From between its sharp teeth issues a threatening growl, one that has the mage recoiling a full step backward.

“Don’t tell me – a sore subject?  No friends to speak of?  Has anyone told you it may be because you’re inconsiderate?”

The growl, if possible, grows louder.  It is punctuated by a menacing bark that reverberates off of every tree in the vicinity.

Dorian sighs.  “Very well then, I was trying to be polite, but you leave me with little other choice.”  From his palm he produces a small flame, swinging it outward as he would a torch.  This sends most beasts running toward the hills, but if anything, his nuisance of a friend only becomes more incessant, beginning a series of barks – a rhythmic staccato that could very well get him caught.  In the orange light of his fire the creature’s eyes glow a honeyed brown, the promise of a threat just beneath the ferocity of a beast.  And beneath that, something else?  He finds it especially difficult to concentrate while trying to decide how best to respond without setting half the forest on fire and alerting every border patrol in the vicinity to his location.

“ _Venavis._ ”

Dorian freezes.  Every muscle in his body grows tense, breath caught halfway to his mouth in a silent gasp.  It sticks painfully where it cannot be dislodged, a persistent irritation that makes it no easier to think clearly.  Whether it were the screaming of his lungs so desperate for restoration of proper functionality or the mana pressing instinctually against his consciousness in reminder of its availability, the only thing that flits through his mind is a single-word descriptor of his current situation.  _Kaffas._

In front of him, the beast gives a low whine before sitting back on its haunches.  It watches Dorian with an eerily sharp stare; looking at him with what he can only imagine is an expression akin to suspicion.

“Turn around, very slowly,” the voice behind him commands.  It is deep, clearly masculine, with a curious enunciation to every word partially obscured by a muffling effect.  A helmet, perhaps?  “Keep your hands flat and raised where I can see them.”

He does as is bid of him.  While it does not help to calm his nerves knowing there is a complicit hound at his back, it does him well to remember that he has survived worse, soothing the thundering of his heart as it beats mercilessly hard against his ribcage.

“And turn that light out!”

Dorian extinguishes the fire from his palm.  Once more he is plunged into darkness.

In the moonlit gloom it is difficult to make out much more than a trim figure in decorous layers of armor, cloth and chainmail.  As Dorian suspected, the man’s face is entirely obscured by a helmet stylized in the telltale marks of the Dalish, accounting for the strange quality detected in the commands given to him.  Elven, then.  He feels his stomach curdling its contents, churning a sour mix of dread and regret.  How many tales has he heard of humans caught by the border guards, returned weeks later to their villages with lashes along their backs and severely malnourished, if ever to return at all?  A part of him always thought the stories mere wives’ tales.  The rest believed readily – surely no one would simply make up such abuses for the sake of scaring children.  There is always truth in fiction, even if a small kernel therein be.

The elven border guard lets out a small sigh, or perhaps a huff, as he observes Dorian.  It gives the human enough time to note that the one who ambushed him is armed with a sword and shield, both strapped to his back, bulking up his figure considerably.  “You are aware that you have crossed the border into elven territory?”  When Dorian does not immediately respond, he continues, “Of course you are.  Have you a writ of passage?”

Dorian shakes his head, swallowing around the ache in his throat where his breath was caught.  “Ah, no.  Unfortunately my business is quite time-sensitive, so you must understand I hadn’t the time to wait around for your monarch to give me a piece of paper telling her vassals I have permission to walk about.”

“Oh?  And what business would you have in the Dales?”

“Just passing through, I assure you,” he tells the Knight.  It is not quite a lie, but it obscures the intent as he meant it to.  Something tells him that this guard is not quite likely to believe him about chasing after his former patron.

The elf is apparently unimpressed by such assurances, if the way he crosses his arms with a huffing breath is any indication.  “I should believe the Tevinter mage when he tells me he intends to pass through?”

This time, his heart seems to stop altogether.  “Whatever makes you think that?”  Subconsciously he takes a step backward, only for a familiar growl to cause him to nearly jump out of his skin.  He hastily steps closer to the rock he can see, rather than the hard place waiting at his back.  Any semblance of control he may held over his own fate has long since unraveled right before him.

“Apostates from the south are not as foolish as to wear such fine robes when sneaking across the Dalish border,” the guard informs him.  “Coupled with your accent, it would be very difficult not to place you as an uninformed visitor from the north.”

 _So much for bluffing._   Dorian lets out a breath, hissing through his teeth, and tries to calm his fraying nerves.  “Very well, yes, I am from Tevinter.  But I did not lie when I told you I was only passing through.  There is something of vital importance I must attend to in Ferelden, and I cannot afford delay.”  He presses his lips together in consideration before adding, “You must believe me when I say that it was not my intention to cause any disturbance.  _Please_.”

The elven man considers him in heavy silence.  Though he cannot see the man’s eyes beneath the helmet over his head, Dorian feels their weight on his presence.  Perhaps it was the beast at his back that made him feel so uneasy, but the blackness where the guard’s eyes ought to be is just as frightening in its inability to be known.  “I believe you,” he says, breaking the hush of night with the weight of those words.  A current of relief swells through the mage’s body, senses and functions coming gradually back to regulation.  “But I do have to wonder what caused you to pick the most heavily guarded section of the border as your point of crossing.”

He curses under his breath, relieved to finally have the ability to do so.  “ _Fasta vass!_   That is the _last_ _time_ I trust a backwoods barkeep to get me across a border.”  Dorian tries to keep the grumble from his words, but finds it near impossible.  Knowing how close he came to being detained by the Dalish border patrol has certainly given him a new perspective.  As irrational as it might be, he cannot help but place the blame _somewhere_.

“What happened to be this barkeep’s name?”

Dorian waves his hand irritably, as though trying to brush the offending man from memory.  “Etienne, or something.  Does it really matter?”

There is a touch of humor, just a lacing of a chuckle in the warrior’s tone as he replies.  “Estienne of Red Crossing?  That sly bastard is always selling your kind out.  Some of the Knights pay him to inform on border hoppers.  Guarantees an easy apprehension on their behalf, keeps his business afloat.  Poor luck for you, though, I am afraid.”

The heat that rises to his face is familiar, but not welcome.  He takes the time to be grateful that it is dark enough the Emerald Knight will not be able to see how his cheeks have colored from embarrassment.  Not for the first time that night, he curses under his breath.  He should have known better, should not have been so careless as to trust a complete stranger in something so crucial!  What would have happened, had he not run into this particular guard?  “Well then I suppose I should thank you for being reasonable enough to hear me out before dragging me off to some dark dungeon for a lashing.”

“You should be thankful you are not my quarry, else I would have dragged you off.”  There is a warning note to the Emerald Knight’s voice, one that suggests to Dorian that he keep his distance.  Familiarity is not an option here.  “As it stands, I cannot be bothered to delay myself much longer.  You have assured me of your intentions to only pass through?”  Dorian nods.  “Good.  Then do so, and do not give me cause to regret letting you pass.”

He bows his head in thanks.  “You have my word,” he promises, meeting the blankness of the warrior’s helm with a level gaze.  “And my sincere thanks for your generosity.”

A soft hum is the immediate response.  “Do not thank me so easily.  It will be no easy task to travel these lands without drawing notice, particularly with your being human.”  He pauses, as if considering his next words.  It seems he settles for being more generous than his earlier deflection would imply, for he tells Dorian, “Take the eastern path, some hundred yards to your right, until you reach a small village.  From there you should be able to charter a caravan to take you to Ferelden.  Few will ask questions if you pay well enough.”

“My thanks, once again,” a genuine statement, for once, leaves Dorian’s mouth.

“ _Mythal’enaste,_ stranger.  Pray that if we meet again it is under better circumstances.”  A sharp whistle emanates from within the elf’s helm, to which the wolf responds with a subdued bark.  It trots past Dorian to stand at the warrior’s side as though it were the most natural thing in the world.  He cannot help but find the sight strange.  The two turn away from him to face a direction all their own, a different path to travel, one with twists and turns unknown to the mortal eye.

They have gone only two paces before the elf turns back to look over his shoulder at Dorian.  “Oh, and stranger?”  This time, he does chuckle – a rich, warm sound, rough around the edges from disuse.  “Next time just take the ferry ‘cross the Waking Sea.”

Dorian watches them disappear into the dark shadows of the forest from whence they came, the unknown no obstacle for a man and his beast.  He watches until they become little more than darkness.

It gives him time to recover from the second wave of embarrassment that has overtaken him.  _No time to regret your poor decision-making, Dorian Pavus._   He is right as usual.  All he can do is follow suit, holding onto this strange feeling that something – the Maker, or a stray bit of luck perhaps – has at last favored him.

Perhaps, if he edits the events a little more to his favor, this will be a fine tale to tell Felix upon his arrival.

He turns in the direction of an eastern road, toward the task that looms ahead, and carries that sense of hope close to his chest until he, too, is little more than darkness.

 

* * *

 

When Renata agreed to help her Aunt Trevelyan at the Conclave, it was not precisely how she imagined spending the next few months of her life.  Then again, she doubted any young woman was thrilled to refill pitchers of water and ensure that the negotiators remained comfortable and level-headed – and preferably as far away from one another as possible, given the natural tendency for mages and Templars to find even the smallest offense a reason to throw a fit, if her father was to be believed.

For the moment, she was simply grateful to have arrived.  The boat she took across the Waking Sea was uneventful, as she suspected, and taking it from Kirkwall had put her into bad spirits.  She may have seen very little of the city, but what she had seen left her with the impression that much of her inhabitants were worse off than she could have ever imagined from the reports.  It was hardly a good way to start off a voyage, and as suggested of her, she did not speak to much of the staff in any capacity beyond what etiquette would call for at a dinner party with strangers.

Nonetheless, she had arrived none the worse for wear, coiled tight with anticipation of what awaited her at the Divine’s peace talks.  _What will happen?_   This is what she wondered as she passed through the tired, snowy town of Haven, past its wood and stone gates, to find herself at the entrance of the Temple of Sacred Ashes.  Having such an opportunity to enter holy ground humbles her greatly, much as she would prefer not to be doing the work assigned to her.  _It will pay off,_ she reminds herself.  _Be grateful for such opportunities as those less fortunate do not have._

When she enters, a man dressed in fine robes, his face a series of similarities in every feature she observes, greets her with his arms spread wide open.

“Waylon!”  The boat ride across the Waking Sea may have been eventless, but when she feels her brother’s arms wrap her into a welcoming embrace, she cannot even be bothered to think on the tedium her life has become.  When was the last time she had the chance to see him, to have him even within arm’s length of her?  A familiar discomfort bubbles in her stomach, the beginning of a rage threatening to boil over.  She doubts such a thing as a strongly-worded rant will do anyone here any favors, let alone directing it at her brother.

Waylon Trevelyan was family, and by all rights should have been the heir to the family’s estate.  But a firstborn cannot collect on their inheritance if it is discovered that magic runs through their veins.  By all rights, he should have been the older brother to her that he was meant to be.  Magic took that away from him, too.

She remembers the day Templars whisked into their home and left with a boy of ten years old, chained like some common criminal.  It is the first memory her young mind formed – a brother she knew for all of four years, holding back tears as he listens to father, clinging to the last shred of dignity that is afforded to him.

Most of all she remembers the disaster left in his wake.  Her father often said (patiently, in response to her constant badgering) that he was studying, that he would be happier among his own kind, people who could understand him – Circles provided anything a person could ever want, and Ostwick was a respectable institution.  She asked her mother, once, if Waylon had been sent away because he set her favorite curtains on fire, and would she be sent away too if she did the same?  Mother laughed and she laughed, until tears leaked freely from her eyes, but the young girl did not understand what was so funny.  She can hear that laugh in her dreams, sometimes, when her mind needs something to fill the peaceful silence, to remind her that even in sleep there is no refuge from that storm.

Eventually she was old enough to write, and that served her well.  She and Waylon corresponded two to three times a week, until the rebellion in Kirkwall began a series of harsh crackdowns leading up to the Mage-Templar War.  The paranoia in each increased, Waylon worrying about the content of his messages, Renata worrying for Waylon’s safety.  Then the letters began drying up, until none were sent at all.

There was little for the youngest of four children to do but practice at penmanship and make nice at formal dinners, were she lucky enough to be invited at all.  Idle time suited her well, though, and eventually she began to see her position as the youngest like a blessing.  It gave her the time to pursue interests that her older brothers were not as lucky as to avoid – all of the training required of a woman born of her station with none of the responsibilities.

It is difficult not to remember these things when she looks at her brother, lost but now found.  Sometimes she wonders if he blames himself, if he ever regrets the accident of being born with magic.  Does he cast a spell and each time become revolted at the rush of doing so; despise how naturally fire jumps from his hand as water does a wellspring?  She has the suspicion that the privacy of their letters was not as definite as to allow him to speak without restriction.

“Let me look at you,” he all but gushes, corralling her out of their hug by the shoulders.  His face is split into a wide, dazzling grin, the corners of his hazel eyes wrinkled.  Out of age, worry or stress she cannot be certain.  “I barely recognized you at first!  You’re practically a lady!”

She raises a brow, trying to use her ‘patient but unimpressed’ scowl that mother so often gave to her children when they misbehaved, but failing to hide the matching grin or the laugh that underscores her response.  “Seeing as I happen to be twenty-six, I should point out that I am, in fact, a lady.”

Waylon laughs with a full-bodied roar, head tilted back with the force of his amusement.  It is exactly as she imagined it would be.  “Right, sorry.”  When he settles again, hands held at his sides, he continues, “It’s, uh, been a long time.  I forget that my baby sister isn’t a baby anymore.”

Renata’s eyes sting at precisely the same time she finds it difficult to swallow.  “Yeah,” she nods.  “It’s hard not to see you the same way, either.”  They do not mention the last time they saw each other – like so many things surrounding Waylon’s existence in their family, the subject is merely implied.  A delicate dance where everyone knows what to speak of, but never says precisely what they mean to.  That little boy from her memories is gone, and this man stands in his place.  They are the same person, somehow, but so very different. 

It is hard to admit that, at first, she had not recognized him either.  It only makes her angrier.

“So,” she says with a puff of breath, “how are the negotiations going?”

His broad shoulders deflate at the mere mention.  “Poorly.”  The word is short, delivery a mere morsel – but the way it is given is enough to tell her everything she needs to know about how her brother is feeling.

Still, more detail never hurt.  “Surely you’ve got more than ‘poorly’ for me.  Come on, Waylon!  Inquiring minds want to know – how do you feel about the Divine’s peace talks?”

He looks at her, that assessing expression so similar to their father’s that it momentarily floors her.  “You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“This stays off the record, alright?”  Waylon’s body goes rigid with a rapid onset of nerves.  She can tell from the way he looks in all directions for anyone that might be in earshot, how he leans in and begins to tell her in a conspiratorial whisper of all the details from the beginning of the summit to the present day.  “I know the Divine wanted us to find some sort of middle ground, and I can respect that.  The thing is?  No one here is actually interested in _doing_ that.  When the mages aren’t busy bickering at their own table about what’s best for our negotiations, the Templars are shooting down any suggestions we make!”  He lets out a sigh, scrubbing a palm across the short bristles of his hair.  “If you ask me, this is a fruitless undertaking.  Peace cannot be made between peoples who don’t seek it of their own motivation.”

Renata presses her lips together.  For the first time, she notes how tired he looks.  What has he been forced to do, to leave such dark circles under his eyes?  Worst of all is knowing that these are things she was not there to help ease the burden of.  It makes her heart ache to see yet another reminder of what she was never able to do, what closeness she was never privileged to provide.  A confidant is not the same as a sister.  When will she be permitted to stop being a correspondent and be a sibling, as she was meant to be?  “That bad?”

Waylon nods.  The tension in his shoulders dissipates with an audible sigh rushing from his nose.  “Yeah.  That bad.”

She wants to give him something to hold onto.  A small bit of hope to keep him going.  Something, anything, to give him a reason not to give up.  “Hey, Waylon?”  He looks up, questioning.  All she can do is smile at him.  “Don’t give up on this summit just yet.  If anyone knows Circle politics well enough to negotiate some sort of truce, it’s you.  This is your chance to come home, so…please.  Whatever it takes, try to see it through.”

He watches her, silently, as she feeds him promises of things he never dared to dream of having.  A tangible family, one beyond meager ink and paper.  People who cared for him and would never watch him like a massacre waiting to happen.  The way he smiles at her says the fantasy is enough, has always been enough, to keep him going.  “I’d like to see my old room again.”

“Everything’s the way you left it,” she laughs, but it sounds hollow to her ears.  Perhaps that is beyond the scope of the unspoken rules of discussion in the Trevelyan household.  She cannot find it in herself to care.  Waylon deserves all the honesty that can be spared.

He laughs, too.  Closer to the real thing, but never quite right.  “Yeah?  I didn’t think—”

Whatever he was about to say is halted by the arrival of a petite woman, her hands folded nervously together in front of her.  “I’m sorry to intrude, Enchanter Waylon, but the session is ready to reconvene.”

Waylon sighs.  “Right.  I’ll join the table momentarily.”

She nods, giving a small bow before scurrying off, presumably in the direction from which she originally came.

“Duty calls.”  He frowns at his sister, arms crossed.  Renata likes to believe she is quite good at reading people.  This posture, if anything beyond disappointed, tells her that he is uneasy.  “Maker willing, we actually get _something_ done.”  Her brother shakes his head, apparently too tired to even attempt not to look tired.  “I’m sorry, but it looks like we’ll have to catch up some other time, Ren.”

“No worries,” she reassures him.  “I think auntie is around here somewhere – she’ll probably kill me if I don’t help her out as father promised of me.”  This, at least, gets Waylon to chuckle.

Neither moves, for a long while, both reluctant to part ways after so short a reunion.  _But,_ Renata reminds herself, _it isn’t forever this time._

Comfortable in the knowledge that she will see her brother again, she offers him a reassuring smile.  “Good luck in there.”

“Thanks.  I think I’ll need it.”  Waylon laughs, one last time, before he crushes her into a tight hug.  “Love you.”  He says it so quietly, so fiercely, that Renata does not doubt it for a second.

As he retreats down the hallway, she returns the sentiment with just as much fervor.

The Temple is a mess of winding corridors and endless tunnels, even with the renovations done by the Chantry to increase its practicality.  She finds herself wandering it like a maze, the steps she takes idle as she thinks back on all that has occurred.  It hurts, to think that she might lose her brother a second time – some strange dance between anger and sorrow that she so often feels when she remembers the boy of ten years, innocent as any his age could be, devout before the teachings of the Chantry, taken away from all he knew.  To know that this was his lot in life, that his eyes should be so tired when he was promised sanctuary by the very people that put such weariness there…what sort of person deserved such a cruel twist of fate?  And a child, no less?

These were the same thoughts that had plagued her up until the Conclave, now reinforced by the image of her brother, so desperate for a little bit of hope that he was willing to take any chance for normalcy.  At least his family cared.  At least they would do all they could to help him.

That is why she agreed to go in the first place.  She may not want to help her aunt with the tasks set out for her, but if it gives Waylon even the smallest edge, she will do it.  Nothing is too much as far as her family is concerned.

_“Someone help me!”_

Renata is broken from her trance by a feminine voice two doors down the hallway she had mindlessly wandered to in the midst of her musings.  Her heart lurches at the agony she hears in that woman’s voice, worry causing her to heed the plea of the unknown victim, all but rushing to the door from which she can hear more cries of pain.  She throws them open without hesitation.

The world explodes in a flash of green light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Venavis - Elvish word for "stop"  
> Mythal'enaste - An Elvish phrase entreating the favor or blessing of Mythal upon the individual to whom it is directed  
> Kaffas - Tevene expletive, likely equivalent to "shit"  
> Fasta vass - Tevene expletive, meaning unknown
> 
>    
> Thank you so much to everyone that commented, bookmarked and left kudos on the first chapter! As always, it is a delight to see that you take enjoyment from reading this project of mine.


	3. Past Processional

The first thing Renata notices upon her waking is that every part of her seems to ache.  From her fingertips up to the simultaneous pounding and fictitious splitting of her skull, no pain of such level could be considered to her fortune.  The soft whine that leaves her throat is more cathartic than anything– though she knows it does nothing, it feels better to have done something than nothing at all.  It should not surprise her, then, when she finally convinces herself to open her eyes that she should be met with even more unpleasantry.  Bad luck comes in threes, as they say.

It should not surprise her, but it does all the same.

Second, she notes the two women standing above her, looking down with contempt, as though she were a waste of skin.  All of her good fortune has apparently been used up.  Were she so lucky, she would not have ever had to meet them.  Not like this, anyway.  The first is dressed in a long chainmail tunic, a purple hood drawn over her head that partially obscures her pale, delicate features in shadow.  Her makeup is meticulously styled to suit her cunning blue eyes, her red hair cut in such a way that flatters the thinness of her face.  Renata tries not to meet her gaze, but she can feel its weight, fears at the magnetic curiosity that begs her to take one more look.  There is a puzzle to this woman that she could spend a lifetime trying to piece together, if only it were not such a dangerous endeavor.

The other woman is more overt a threat.  Whereas the one hiding in shadow exudes a quiet sort of danger, this one paces about Renata with her hand on the pommel of her sword.  She is ready to strike at all times, and it would seem the desire to do so is barely restrained.  The sharpness of her dark eyes, narrowed as they are, brings to mind the image of a prized eagle.  Renata’s father owned one for hunting and it had always terrified her, the wild force of that glower, so similar to the one that is likely imagining a thousand ways in which to carry out her murder.  The woman’s face is severe even without the telltale wrinkle of her long, thin nose – perhaps the most delicate feature, oddly suited to the strong cut of her jaw, accented by shorn black hair that reaches no further than the tips of her ears.  It is difficult to determine whether she should be considered beautiful or frightening.  Right now, Renata is inclined to say both.

Her palm thrums with a dull burning sensation.  It is at this time she notices the rope binding her wrists together and gasps as her left palm dances with green energy – brown skin cracked and split just down the middle.  When that energy jumps, illuminating the chamber with an unearthly glow, pain lances through the whole of her arm, drawing a hissing gasp from her lips.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now,” the hawkish woman spits, words dripping with hate.  There is an insinuation in that commanded entreaty, but for the life of her, Renata cannot puzzle out what it is she is meant to say, let alone what is meant by it.  All she grasps is the severity.

_Oh Maker…what have I gotten myself into?_

Thankfully, the sword-bearer fills in the blanks.  “The Conclave is destroyed.  Everyone who attended is dead.  Except for you.”

Renata feels her lungs collapse at approximately the same time the world closes in on her.  Every breath she draws is painful, an automatic compulsion of her body that feels unnatural, _wrong_ , the more she attempts to regulate it.  They are drawn in shuddering, pathetic mouthfuls, short, their only use to keep her alive.  The frigid chamber, its confining bindings and its accusatory jailors, fall away as the thoughts in her mind increase in volume and intensity, becoming unintelligible shouts.  The Templars.  The mages.  The Divine, some helpful part of her notes.  Her aunt.

Her brother.

_“Waylon…”_   It is barely even a whisper, with how quietly she says it.  She may as well not have said it at all – none would hear, not even herself.

She snaps back to reality at approximately the same time her wrist is forcibly lifted, bringing it level to her gaze.  The dark-haired interrogator is snarling at her with scathing contempt, having kneeled down to approximate the height of their prisoner.  “Explain this.”

The gash sputters to life.  So close to her face, she hears her flesh sizzle in tandem with its steadily-familiar burn.

Renata sucks in a breath carefully through her nostrils, forces the rising panic down in an effort to preserve some of her dignity.  With as level as voice as she can muster, she complies.  “You can’t draw blood from a stone.  I haven’t a clue what it is; let alone what might have put it there.”

This is not an appropriate response, apparently.  If anything it incenses the warrior.  She lets out a vicious growl and very nearly tackles Renata.  “You’re lying!”  Were it not for the timely intervention of the shadowed woman, she likely would have left a sizable bruise on the noblewoman’s cheek.

Her face is saved by the redhead, who drags her snarling partner away.  They speak in low tones, briefly – it is loud enough for Renata to catch the hawkish woman’s name.  Cassandra.

The redhead turns to face her, now, stepping imperceptibly closer.  Perhaps she is just imagining it.  “Do you remember what happened?”  Her tone is no less gentle, despite its feigned calm.  Whereas Cassandra’s was scalding, this one’s is sharp and cold.

“If I did, wouldn’t I have told you already?”  That is her immediate reply.  A sensible one, too – her headache is building, as is the burning pressure in her scarred palm.

“I suggest you try,” the hooded woman subtly threatens.  Her accent sounds Orlesian, much like the annoying family from Kirkwall that she was sometimes made to attend functions with.  This woman, at least, seems less vexing and more terrifying.  For a moment, Renata is uncertain which is worse.

Renata swallows with some difficulty.  She just barely manages to mask her shaking, with how nervous she feels, but it gets slightly easier when she closes her eyes.  What had happened?

There was a blinding flash of light.  _Green_ , her mind supplies.  _The light was green, and it blinded you.  When you could see again, everything was different._   She could not be certain how, but she knew that where she walked then was not as it was supposed to be.

“I—remember running,” she begins, narrating the fragments as they return to her.  It gets easier when she pretends her life does not hang in the balance.  If she is alone, it seems less likely the interrogators will interpret her shattered memories as if they were some desperate bid for freedom.  She knows her family cannot help her now.  “There were these…things…chasing me.  I ran, up some ledge.  And there was…a woman, up there.  Waiting for me.”

“A woman?”

“She reached out to me,” Renata clarifies.  “But I couldn’t—I tried to…”  She finishes with a frustrated sigh, the flickers of memory slipping away, leaving her in darkness.  In no rush she opens her eyes, finding the two staring at her assessingly with their arms crossed.  For a moment, the nameless woman’s face changes, ever so slightly, to accommodate something familial to sadness.

Cassandra draws her accomplice away by a few steps, creating the illusion of distance enough for true privacy.  A knowing look is exchanged between them, but she can only guess at its meaning.  They share it for a few moments before the dark-haired woman sees fit to return to business.  “Go to the forward camp, Leliana.  I’ll take her to the rift.”

Leliana bows her head in acknowledgement, sweeping from the room with all the polish of a particularly lethal socialite.  Renata cannot help but to find that extremely curious.

She has no time to think on it further, however, as Cassandra kneels down far enough to grab her by the elbow and pull her bodily upward, until she is standing on her feet.  The warrior keeps a hand at her elbow and shoves, compelling her to walk forward.  With her terror rising, Renata has no choice but to obey.  “What did happen?”  _And why can I not remember any of it?_

“It will be easier to show you,” she replies.

Cassandra leads her up a set of stone stairs in a narrow hallway, which led to a dimly-lit room with high ceilings and through a set of tall, heavy wooden doors accented by wrought iron.  She recognizes them as the ones belonging to the Chantry in a small, tired little town which saw no recognition until the day the Divine had chosen it as host to a meeting of two warring factions, a place where understanding might spring up between disparate peoples.

The warrior pushes the door open with little effort, leaving Renata squinting in the Haven morning light.  It is not the crowd of people outside that draw her attention, but the sky overhead, a shock of green streaking above the final resting place of what remained of the Maker’s Bride.  “We call it the Breach,” Cassandra supplies beside her.  “A massive tear into the world of demons.  It grows larger with each passing hour.  It is not the only such rift, just the largest.  All caused by the explosion at the Conclave.”

With every word she speaks, the shape – the Breach, Renata supposes – writhes, moving with such personality as to suggest aggravation.  Were the young Lady Trevelyan not informed of its inanimate nature, she might have guessed that it was alive.  It certainly puts her on edge as though it were.

“If we do not act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world.”

When Cassandra puts it that way, it does very little to assuage her concerns about its sentience.

Renata can almost feel the pressure building in her palm before the column of light strikes the earth below the Breach like lightning.  It does not help to ease the pain as her hand erupts with twin light, does nothing to stop the feeling that she has been victim to that strike.  She crumples to the ground with a shout, a drawn-out and pathetic yelp, desperately pressing her hand into the cool snow in an attempt to ease the currents of agony bursting just beneath her skin, scoring everything it touches with its burning corruption.  It seems she is powerless in this endeavor, the hurt too profound to reach with the mundane remedy of snowfall.

By the time Cassandra kneels down next to her, Renata is passing her breaths in measured units through her teeth, hissing them out into the world as puffs of steam evaporating into the bitter midday air.  There is a touch of sympathy in the way in which the warrior regards her, though this too is delivered with a steely determination.  “Each time the Breach expands, the mark spreads – and it is killing you.  It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.”

She suspected as much.  Her stomach sinks all the same.  There are a thousand things she wants to say on the tip of her tongue, nascent words waiting for the moment when they will at last have the chance to grace the world.  She could deride the warrior, chastise her for believing that Renata would harm herself in such a manner.  She could tell her about the aunt she lost, the brother she had just found and lost again.  But it all feels hollow.  They are empty words from an empty person.  There is nothing left in her worthy of voicing but a promise.

Renata takes a breath, savors the crisp mountain air like the last drop of wine.  “I understand.”

Cassandra’s eyes soften briefly out of surprise.  If she had been capable, Renata might have laughed.  Instead she simply watches as they shift from shock to subdued approval.  “You mean…?”

“Whatever it takes,” she replies.

If she is to die, then she will at least make herself useful before joining her kin at the Maker’s side.

With her steady hands, Cassandra draws her up to her feet once more.  They pass through Haven, crowds parting wherever the warrior leads her, though the people jeer and scream.  Cassandra tries to explain their behavior, justify anger placed wrongfully on her shoulders, but Renata finds it difficult to care.  She is contemplating the metaphysical – mortality, and what is after it.  An angry mob is of no concern, not when she is dead already.  She is but a corpse waiting for the funeral pyre.

When they cross the first pair of gates that allows them onto the stone bridge leading out of Haven, Cassandra draws a knife from her belt.  Renata flinches instinctively but wills herself to settle, assured that she is too useful a tool for the dark-haired woman to simply throw away.  For now, anyway.  She is grateful when the thick rope is cut loose and proper blood flow returns to her hands.  “There will be a trial,” Cassandra tells her as she slips the knife back into its sheath.  “I cannot promise more.”  _Like your survival_ is simply left to hang in the air between them, implied but acknowledged by both.

Part of her wonders, as they pass a stone bridge guarded by two soldiers and exit onto a dirt road up the mountainside, if perhaps the people of Haven are right to blame her.  How would she know, truly, that she was innocent?  Of course, she knows it was not done on purpose.  Something so powerful as to tear a hole in the sky would take a great deal of planning.  An accident is a possibility.  But what could cause such a thing to occur?

_And now I’m questioning my_ own _innocence,_ Renata sullenly remarks in the privacy of her headspace.  _Don’t make it easier for them to put this all on you!_

They make to cross another bridge on the path in order to cut over the frozen river, but it is at this precise time that the Maker decides to remind her that the life lain out for her is not an easy one.  Debris, burning viridian as it falls from the torn sky, slams into the bridge just ahead of them.  Renata feels herself tumbling through open air, desperately flailing for purchase.  It is over in mere seconds, but it feels like an eternity before her body hits solid ice.  She hears a distinct crack as the back of her head connects with the ground.  Instantly, pain blossoms red behind her eyelids, drawing a hiss from her clenched teeth.

Somewhere, albeit distantly, Cassandra is saying something.  It is followed by a loud raucous that echoes like the ringing inside her aching head.

Any attempts to stand are done on wobbly legs, her swaying the cause of a head drowned in pain and the natural fear of a woman standing on a sheet of ice that could give way to frigid water at any second – as much of a death sentence as anything this Breach could spit out at them.

Speaking of which…

Renata blinks forcefully, willing the world back into focus.  Shapes become more distinct, sounds are given clarity.  She returns to the world just in time to see an amorphous creature with a single, massive glowing eye and layers of wrinkled skin hurtling toward her position.  There was something Cassandra had said, something important, but she has not the time to contemplate it.

Heart racing, the prisoner casts a glance at her surroundings, surveying for something, _anything_ , to offer some form of protection.  Cassandra is busy with her own demon some distance away, and the one singling Renata out is blocking any means of escape.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a bow and a full quiver resting next to a crate behind her.  Adrenaline allows her to push the fears of thin ice out of her mind.  She dives for it.

There is no moment of revelation, no sense that the situation is better, or that it feels somehow _right_ when the bow fits into the palm of her hand.  Just the comfort of possessing some means of defense and the will to survive.  She could not know its significance and did not care to question it.  Every moment wasted wondering about such existential things was another inch closer her pursuer drew.

She pulls an arrow from the quiver as though it were a means to an end, fits it with her thumb against the bow in an estimation of proper form.

Just a few feet remain.

She breathes in, pulls the arrow back between her index and middle fingers, takes no time to marvel at the resilience of the wood or the fortitude of the string as the bow strains with the tension created by her will.

Closer, now.

She lets go.

If there ever were a time for the Maker to intervene, Renata would be convinced of his handiwork in this.  The arrow flies free to bury itself up to the fletching in the eye of the demon, which recoils with an inhuman shriek.  It gives her enough time to draw another arrow, follow her estimation of proper form once more, and lodge it within the folds of its excess skin.  One more finds its home within the demon’s chest.  That is the blessed end of it.  Renata watches with sick fascination as it collapses in on itself, melting into the ground as though it were an empty sack given life.  And so taken away, it is formless once more, a useless bag lying on the frozen river in the reflection of whence it came overhead, as though longing for home.

For a brief moment she is sympathetic.

It passes when she hears the death throes of another demon.  She turns to find Cassandra approaching her with a now-familiar snarl, sword and shield drawn threateningly in her direction.  “Put your weapon down!”

Renata huffs out a breath but tries not to let her irritation show.  “A demon attacked me, and you want me to put my weapon down?”

“You don’t need to fight,” Cassandra glowers, if possible, more powerfully.  The domineering manner in which she approaches this has the opposite effect however, as it only makes the young Lady Trevelyan react in a contrary manner.

“Because you’ll be able to protect me, like you did this time?”  She clutches the bow tighter, pulls the quiver closer to her person.

There are a tense few seconds where the two simply stare at one another.  Under most circumstances Renata would be inclined to agree to Cassandra’s protection – she is no archer, did not see the point in learning such skills when offered – but given the very real possibility of such a situation occurring again, she prefers even the fabricated security that having her own weapon provides.  With a relenting groan, Cassandra at last sheathes her sword.  Renata could see her resolve falter in her expression long before any noise or voicing of assent.  “Very well then, take the bow.  I cannot protect you.”  She begins walking away.  Renata makes to follow, but stops abruptly just as Cassandra turns on her heel to address her.  “I should remember that you agreed to come willingly.”

_That would be nice,_ she thinks, fastening the quiver securely over her shoulder as she follows silently in Cassandra’s footsteps.

 

 

By the time they reach the forward camp, they are joined by two others that had been out in the valley fighting.  Varric Tethras was a surprise – Renata could not even begin to imagine what had led the dwarven storyteller to the employ of the Chantry.  From _The Tale of the Champion,_ not to mention some of his more risqué titles, she had always assumed that his leanings were rather more toward the agnostic.  As it turns out, she did not have to wonder for long, as Varric told her in deliberate tones about his work here.  Cassandra’s reaction was very telling.  Part of her was soothed, knowing that she was not the only one here that had been taken prisoner of by the Seeker.

Their other companion, however, was another story.  A rather desolate one, at that.  She knew, even without looking at the staff clutched tightly in his paper-white hands, that he was a mage.  He was possessed of an aura much akin to Waylon’s, something deep and unfathomable in the way he held himself.  And hold himself he did – from the cut of his shoulders to the posturing of his legs, this man knew himself, and that somehow gave him more importance than an apostate should rightfully retain.  She had never met an elf with such pride in his posture, thinking back on all the servants employed in her household.  These combined were enough to let her know that he was different.  At first she had wondered if he was Dalish, but he would have worn tattoos on his face if that were accurate.  He was barren of such a belligerent indicator of nationality, and as such, was likely an elf born in the cities of Andrastian societies.

Solas was the one to show her how to close the rifts with her hand.  He was the one that had apparently postulated that she would be able to seal the Breach with it.  She admits to a certain level of curiosity, privately, about Solas.  It was not every day that one met an elven apostate, let alone one as knowledgeable as to accurately predict the function of her cursed hand.

But her questions must wait, if they are to be given the chance to be asked at all.  There are more pressing matters that need attendance, as the four can surely agree.

As they approach the forward camp – if it can be called a camp at all, with its minimal supplies placed haphazardly across a cobblestone bridge – Renata can hear the faintest scraps of an argument in the distance.  “This way,” Cassandra tells them, striding with purpose toward a table at the back of the camp.  The closer they draw, the more Renata can make out Leliana’s voice.  She does not recognize the masculine voice, but she does take note of its owner’s apparent frustration and self-importance, judging by the tone.

“Call a retreat, Seeker,” he tells Cassandra as she draws close, voice worn.  “Our position here is hopeless.  We must elect a replacement and obey her orders on the matter.”

Renata’s brows furrow.  “You want to wait for the Chantry to elect the next Divine when the sky is literally raining demons?  We can’t afford to wait that long!”

“The prisoner is right, Chancellor Roderick.”  The aforementioned Chancellor’s expression fluctuates from anger to disbelief and back again.  “This is our best chance to end this.  If we do not act, there will be no chance for an election at all.”

The man balks, visibly affronted by the mere notion of such a thing occurring.  “This is absurb!  You cannot expect me to sit by and watch the woman that _murdered the Divine_ walk free – she should be sent to Val Royeaux to be held accountable for her crimes, not receive the mercy of death on that mountain trail!”

Cassandra’s ire snaps its full attention onto the ruddy-nosed man, and Renata takes a moment to be grateful that it is not her that is made to wilt under her glower.  “You are in no position to order me, Chancellor!  We will take the prisoner up to the Temple with or without your approval.  The soldiers will accompany us through the path, unlike a Chantry worker too unimportant to attend the Conclave.”

Roderick throws his hands up in frustration, mouth open in what is sure to be a loud variation of _How dare you!_   Leliana does not give him the chance, however, as she narrows her eyes at the Seeker.  “It might be the most expedient, but it certainly isn’t the safest.  What if we went through the mountains?  Our forces could serve as a distraction while the prisoner moves unhindered.”

Cassandra snorts derisively.  “That path can hardly be considered safer, Leliana.  How many scouts have we risked and then lost when ordered to take it?”

“Enough!”  The Chancellor is as near to a snarl as he can get, scruffy cheeks pulled into the telltale features of a sneer.  He is apparently too exhausted to continue such a front, as he continues more softly, “Abandon this now, before more lives are lost.”

A fresh wave of anger momentarily overwhelms her.  How could he not see what was happening, how prudent it was to act?  How could he not understand what was at stake?  She takes a breath through her nose and wills her rationality to take control.  Snapping at each other will do no one any favors.  There is more on the line than any one person.

Renata looks at him, the tired slope of his shoulders, laden with the heavy burden of guilt and shock.  The Chancellor is just as frightened as she is, just as confused and lost in the chaotic climate of this unfamiliar world that she woke to not long ago.  “If we do nothing,” she tells him with a firm tone, as sympathetic as she can manage, “then we lose more lives than can be counted.”

Overhead, the Breach crawls ever onward, empowered by a second flash of light.  Her hand erupts with fresh sparks of pain, surging under the surface of her hand, as if it yearns to match the strength of its larger kin.  The scar on her hand pulsates with every chunk of stone that falls to the ground, aches with each life further lost to inaction.

She hopes, somewhere in his mind, that this small bit of reason sticks with him.

“Let us ask the prisoner what she thinks,” Cassandra suggests.  At Renata’s stunned reaction, she explains, “You are the one that needs to be kept alive.  And since we cannot agree on our own…”

Renata looks up at the Temple of Sacred Ashes in the distance.  There are a hundred reasons she could give to justify sneaking around through the mountain pass – it would be safer, it would give them some small advantage of surprise over the enemy, it seems the more logical choice than simply throwing themselves into direct line of fire…but in the end, it feels no more right than anything else.

She looks down at her hand, the glowing scarification aching as she curls her fingers into a fist.  She is reminded of her odds once again.  “There’s no guarantee I’ll live long enough for your trial, is there?”

It cannot be a waste.  She will not let it be so – she cannot fail these people as she did her family.

Looking to Cassandra with newfound determination, she gives the woman a nod.  “We charge with the soldiers.  Whatever happens, it happens now.”

As they move past the forward camp, out of the corner of her eye, she thinks she can see a faint, approving smile on Cassandra’s face.

 

 

The ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes are littered with stone and rubble, the floor coated with a mix of snow and soot that was once the substance mortal men, reduced to the same state as their Lady in the place of her final rest.  Countless lives, lost in an instantaneous explosion.  _Did they suffer long, I wonder?_   Among the crumbling debris is the evidence of such a horror as what occurred, their faces contorted in pain.  She cannot bear to look at them despite her morbid curiosity, too frightened by the revelation that among them, somewhere, is her brother.  Her aunt, as well.  Bitter bile rises in her throat.

“This is where our soldiers found you.  You fell out of a rift.”  Renata looks back at Cassandra, who holds her stare as she finishes, “They say a woman was standing behind you.”

Perhaps she should feel a sense of familiarity with the winding corridors, having once walked them, but any resemblance to the original layout has since dissipated.  It is now a place occupied by unnatural rock formations and corpses charred beyond recognition, a reminder of all that was lost in the formation of the Breach.

They are met by a relieved Leliana and several scouts as they hop down the ledge and into what was once the heart of the Temple.  “You made it!  Thank the Maker.”

“And Curly,” Varric comments.  She can only guess that by Curly he means the Commander, which she supposes is fitting.

Solas takes several steps forward, the tails of his shabby green coat fluttering with the slight movement.  “This rift is the first, and also the largest.  Seal it, and the Breach may be closed.”

Renata looks up at the tangle of stone, its edges traveled by intermittent green light.  The gnarl is suspended high above into the air – too high for any one man to reach.  “How do you expect me to fix _that_?”

The elf turns to consider her thoughtfully, pursing his full lips.  “If your Mark is capable of sealing rifts, then should it not also follow that it can open them?”  He smiles faintly, if at all, when her eyes light up with understanding as she looks from her left hand to the rift.

Cassandra seems just as quick on the uptake as Renata.  “Then we must draw closer if we are to fix this.”

“I’ll position my scouts around the Temple.  Good luck,” Leliana gives a shallow bow of her head before turning to her men, indicating vantage points from which they can assist in the coming battle.

“There’s no time to waste.  Come, we must reach the rift.”  The Seeker takes a brisk pace forward through the path coiling lazily around the central chamber of the Temple.

Renata follows with a growing sense of dread clawing at the pit of her stomach.

_Bring forth the sacrifice._

Cassandra’s dark brows furrow at approximately the same time the prisoner jumps.  She looks about herself for a source, but finding none, turns instead to Solas.  “What are we hearing?”

“Echoes of what happened here,” the apostate explains.  “At a guess?  The one who caused the Breach.”

Why did that voice sound so familiar to her?

She pulls the bow from her back, holds the grip a little too tightly for comfort.  But it reminds her that there is strength left in her body still, and it gives her the courage to continue on through the Temple even as it echoes with every transgression committed upon its once sacred ground.  It longs for them to know what happened, to tell its story to anyone that will listen.

They press on, this time more cautiously.  As they pass a bend in the deformed path, the terrain is stained with a dark orange glow, emanating from tall crystalline structures the color of fresh blood.  The closer they draw, the more she cannot help but notice how _warm_ they are, how much energy lurks just beneath their murky facets.  Beside her Varric’s expression passes to an uneasy grimace.  “Red lyrium,” he says solemnly.  “What’s it doing here?”

“It is possible that the magic that created the Breach corrupted any natural deposits beneath the Temple,” Solas suggests.  He is showing the mineral a healthy respect, but trepidation is clear in the manner his shoulders hunch upward.

“Pah,” the storyteller waves his hand dismissively, “it’s evil!  Whatever you do, don’t touch the stuff.”

Renata looks concernedly down at the dirt beneath the party’s feet, observing that several jagged crystals are sticking up like vermilion thorns.  Her boots seem sturdy enough to hold against them, but she dances around them all the same, stepping carefully through the field.  She notes that Solas’ toes are not protected unlike the others.  Was that an elven thing, to walk about near-barefoot, or could he simply not afford proper shoes?  “Watch your footing, Solas.”

He does not respond, but takes more pointed care in where he steps from his position behind her.

As they progress the severity of the lyrium infection lessens, giving way to dark rock formations.  They are closer, now, to the source of this madness.

_Someone help me!_

This one was more familiar than the last, though Renata still could not place it.  The owner was so panicked, so desperate to escape her fate, but what did she call out to avoid?  And to whom did she plead for assistance?  Cassandra, however, turns to her with eyes widened in recognition.  “That is…Divine Justinia’s voice!”

When they hurdle over a final drop down into the central chamber, the Temple echoes once again, causing Renata’s pulse to jump.

_What’s going on here?_

She did not remember saying it, any more than she recognized where she now stood – a barren field, a makeshift graveyard for people who deserved better.  Renata blinks slowly, breathes in deeply, to soothe her rising panic.  Why could she not remember?

Above them, the rift releases a shimmering light, and the entire scene unfolds above them in a dance of verdant phantasms.

A suggestion of a figure, his eyes aglow with sneering self-satisfaction.  _Bring forth the sacrifice._

Divine Justinia in her ceremonial robes, suspended and bound by some form of magic akin to chains.  She struggles against the spell to no avail, calls out with desperation clear in her voice.  _Someone help me!_

Then, a woman.  Distantly Renata recognizes it as herself, a viridian impression with the same long hair bound up in a simple bun.  She bursts forward as though having thrown wide a door, eyes widening at what she witnesses.  _What’s going on here?_   It even has her voice!  Was this what Solas had said about the Temple being left with imprints of what occurred?

_We have an intruder!_ The towering shadow turns its hateful gaze onto the shadow of her.  It seems to point at the phantom Renata before growling out an order.  _Slay the woman!_

And just as quickly as the phantasmagoria began, it ends.  The apparitions created by the power of the rift fade away to nothing.

Cassandra turns to her, visibly shaken.  “So you _were_ there!”  Her voice is still hard as steel as she returns to the instinct of interrogation.  “Most Holy called out to you for help.  Tell me what happened!  What are we seeing?”

Renata twists her hands against the smooth, polished wood of her bow.  _What_ had _happened?_   “I’m sorry, Cassandra,” she says, trying to keep the ire from her voice as she does so.  “I don’t remember.”

The Seeker’s composure falters, disappointment clear in the downcast of her once-steady gaze.  It is a brief moment, no more than a blink of the eye, in which this occurs.  Then the familiar steel returns to her, the warrior clad in armor as she should be.  She turns her gaze toward the rift above them and draws her sword.  “We will discuss this later.  Right now, the only thing that matters is sealing the Breach.”

With that, Solas steps into line next to her.  For a moment they watch the rift’s calcified mass shift with the continual flow of energy, fascinated by its seemingly innocuous state and horrified by its capacity to cause such destruction in equal measure.  Or so she guessed – it was entirely possible that the elven apostate had a strictly academic reason for accompanying the Seeker on this endeavor.  He draws in a breath, so quietly that Renata might have thought it an imagined thing were it not for the expansion of his chest.  “Can you feel it?”

With her left hand she lets go of the bow and twists her wrist so that her scarred palm faces upward, the glow emanating from deep within pulsating in time with the rift.  If she concentrates, there is a sensation to the pattern, the timing between every twinge discernable.  “Yes.  It’s like something trapped in my hand is pushing against the skin.  Like it’s…trying to get out.”

Solas hums, nodding slowly.  “The Mark is reacting to the Breach.”  He does not look at her, but skyward, considering the object of their excursion with a watchful eye.  “It bears the same origins as what caused the formation of the rifts.  You might think of it as a key.  Just as you sealed the rifts in the valley with it, you may be able to unlock them.  In this case, it will be necessary to do so.”

Renata turns to him, her heart leaping into her throat.  The task seems daunting, now that she is forced to face it.  Any admission of fear seems pointless, a waste of breath, when she considers telling him as much.  Now is not the time to cower away from responsibility.  This is not about her or how she feels, not about the magic slowly eating away at her from within.  “What do I do?”

He seems to perceive the mounting dread anyway, as he places a steady hand on her shoulder and squeezes, briefly, before letting go.  “Concentrate on the rift.  Assert your will over its power and allow it to be channeled within toward your Mark, as a mage would do to siphon mana from his foe.  Once you do this, it will become like second nature.”

“Thank you,” she tells him sincerely, sucking in a long breath between her lips.

The apostate dips his head just slightly in acknowledgement.  Then he turns to address Cassandra, and the gathering of soldiers and scouts as a whole.  “The rift can be sealed, but it must first be opened in order to do so properly.  Doing so will likely attract attention from the other side.”

Cassandra’s expression turns to one of grim determination.  “That means demons.  Stand ready!”  On cue, the congregation draws its weapons.  Archers nock their arrows, soldiers hold their shields aloft, and all wait with waning breath for the prisoner to do what she was first brought here to accomplish.

She steps forward, her hand spitting with a jolt of energy.  Every footfall sends another spark through her veins, building pressure like a bubble waiting to burst.

It gets harder to breathe, harder to think, as she comes within range of the rift overhead.  She is sparsely aware of everyone’s eyes on her as she lifts her hand, does not acknowledge that for a split second, they are as one, for they all hold a collective breath in anticipation.

_I don’t want to die._

The thought emerges from the back of her mind at precisely the same time a jet of energy erupts from the rift, popping the bubble just beneath her skin in a barrage of searing pinpricks.  For several seconds she is tethered to that mass of tangled magic gone awry by her hand, can feel the rush of power that is at once too much to bear and not enough – the Mark hungrily devours it all, and with a spluttering pop, strips the calcification from the sky.  The rift is left barren and exposed, a continually shifting veil of green, haunting in its preternatural beauty.

Renata has the span of time it takes for her to blink in order to admire that small window into the Fade before bad fortune finds its way to her once more.

First come its claws, massive things like swords fused to the ends of its fingers, grasping the sides of the rift as it presses itself through forcibly, steps one foot after the other into the waking world, and stands at full height.  Covered from head to toe in jagged purple scales, Renata wonders at the bipedal giant, how very humanoid it is, as though it were an estimation of how it might have once perceived of a person.

Its face is twisted into a sadistic grin, lightning popping across its muted purple hide as it surveys the shouting warriors with countless beady eyes.  Such sick amusement can be heard in its deep unearthly cackle, a bodily thing that tips its head up toward the rift from whence it came.  It is sickeningly familiar, a twisted reincarnation of a sudden recollection forced upon her.  _Waylon laughing with a full-bodied roar, head tilted back with the force of his amusement._   Her skin crawls at the association, ire building that it should _dare_ to compare itself even through the subconscious machinations of her mind to her brother.

Renata sucks in a breath and pulls an arrow from the quiver strapped to her back.  She fits it in place, draws the string back until it grazes her cheek, tolerates the buildup of tension in her arms that is created by her hands.  So long as there is life in her body, she will not give up.  No matter what comes, even if she must pick up a weapon and learn to fight, she will survive.

With that secret promise made, she levels the arrow at the aspect of pride, and fires.


	4. Negotiations

_Mother,_

_There are no words in the world to explain what has happened to me.  First, you should know that I am fine – relatively speaking.  I am breathing and that is more than I had expected of myself by this point, after all that I have been through.  The Inquisition and its leaders have been quite kind to me, though Haven is no paradise.  They lack much here in the way of civilization.  Every day that passes leaves me aching for the comforts of home.  But I shall not complain.  It would be unseemly, in the face of all that they have spared me from._

_You will hear a number of things about me in the coming days, most of which will not be true.  Rumor should not change the truth, no matter how the world might want to believe what is easiest.  I ask you to keep this in mind next you hear of me by way of idle gossip: you know your daughter.  If you should face scorn because of me, then take my apology, for what little sincerity does to mend the damage._

_I know that you would ask me to return, to better explain myself in person, but I cannot.  I cannot pretend that the Conclave did not change me, no more than I can describe what about me has changed.  The Inquisition needs me and I will not turn away from them.  For as long as that may take._

_~~You should hear it from me first,~~ _

_~~I feel it only appropriate that~~ _

_~~Waylon was~~ —_

“Is everything alright?”

Renata jumps in place, every muscle going tense as she drops her quill.  She very nearly spills her ink as well, but manages to snatch it up before any of it dribbles out.  Her heart is still racing as she cranes her neck over her shoulder, up and up until she meets a familiar face.  “Commander!”

Cullen Rutherford, to her knowledge, was a hard-working man.  He seemed like one, anyway, with tired amber eyes and the scruff to show for it.  The first opportunity they had been given to speak outside the war room he had been swamped with agents passing along reports and messages in the midst of a training exercise.  In her experience, the ones that worked the hardest, that did the work themselves, were honest.  And an honest man was often a good one.

The first time they met had been in the field.  He had fought beside his soldiers up the mountains, given her a gruff response as she passed them by.  In all honesty, she did not pay him much attention then.  There were other things on her mind.

Now she takes the time to memorize these little things about him, how he holds his shoulders straight against the unforgiving weight of iron pauldrons.  Even the way he dresses is suggestive of his past, as though he could not part with it – right down to the coloration on the fur-lined jacket that bulks his frame up considerably, so similar to the organization that once employed him.

He frowns concernedly down at her, idly scratching at a stubbly patch on his cheek.  “Er, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“That’s quite alright,” she says, mashing the stopper into the glass bottle until there was no give.  As she stands, she grabs the quill for good measure, stowing them away in the pouch at her belt.  “What brings you away from your soldiers?”

She had never seen him outside the war room unless it was in the small outcropping of tents where the soldiers practiced, let alone so far away from the gates.  He seems out of place, here, and he shifts awkwardly as if to prove her assumption.  “A headache.  It’s quieter out this way, so I walk along the docks when I need time alone.”

Was she in his way?  Renata clutches the unfinished letter in her hand a little tighter as a cold mountain breeze tickles a loose strand of hair across her cheek.  “I can leave, if you need—”

“No!”  Cullen’s sudden bark startles her again, though judging by the way his eyes have gone wide and round, he seems startled himself.  He clears his throat, reaching one hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose as his eyes slide shut.  “No, I – I only meant that I thought you might come out here for the same reason.  Is everything alright?”

Renata puffs her cheeks out with the force of her sigh, compressing the air between her lips in a noisy exhale.  In the frigid climate it puffs up like smoke, wafting upward until it is gone.  “Oh, just fine.  I’m trying to write to my family, to let them know I’m staying with the Inquisition.  I thought if I saw the Breach I might be able to put into words why I have to.”

The commander makes a sympathetic noise, head bobbing shortly as he does so.  “I take it your writing isn’t going well?”

Despite her frustration, all the reasons and justifications she has to _not_ do so, she flashes him a tired grin.  “What gave it away?”

He lets out a quiet chuckle.  The noise sends a warm tingle through her chest.  It is odd, that she should find the noise so immediately endearing, but the feeling is there nonetheless.  “The look of defeat is written across your face.  I’d know it anywhere.  I find it just as impossible to write to my family.”

“You’ve an overbearing mother as well?”  _Now, wouldn’t that be a sight?  The Commander of the Inquisition being nagged by his mother!_

Commander Rutherford shakes his head, the beginning of a fond smile softening the features of his face.  Beneath all of that sourness is a young man, what small bit of him shines through now.  It is easy to forget that Cullen cannot be much older than her, if at all.  “A well-meaning sister, more like.  I always intend to write, but can never find the words.  It’s been a long time…longer than I would like to admit.”

There is a dark tinge to his tone, unpleasant memories lurking just below, threatening to resurface.  They beckon to her, appeal to her curiosity in ways that she knows will be damaging.  The last thing she wants is to upset him, no matter how much she wonders at the reason for his avoidance of contact with family.  Should she ever learn, it will be at his acquiescence, through earning the right to his trust.

Instead, Renata gives him as encouraging a smile as she can.  “I’m willing to bet she’d like to hear from you, especially now.  Even if it’s just a few words letting her know you’re still alive.”

His expression softens further, but this time, it is directed at her rather than a memory.  “Do you think so?”

“I do.”  She speaks softly, but no less emphatically.

“Perhaps I will write to her.”  He nods, thoughtful in the way he does so, as though turning the possibilities over in his head – what phrasing he might use, how much to divulge of his work.  “Thank you, Herald.”

_Again with the Herald of Andraste!_   Renata tries not to let her irritation show, though she winces internally at the objectionable title.  Sometimes she wonders if people even listen to her when she tells them not to call her that.  There is no fight left in her, not today, with which to contend its application to her or condemn it as blasphemy.  It would be a good day, if she never had to hear _Herald of Andraste_ in reference to her again.  “Please, Commander – call me by name when we’re not working.”

Cullen seems mildly surprised, but not unpleasantly so.  “Of course.  If that is what you’d like, Lady Trevelyan.”  The two smile at each other, the commander shyly, Renata warmly.  He opens his mouth several times, as though he wants to say something else, but each time no sound comes out.

As it turns out, he never gets the chance.

“Herald?  A word, when you’ve a moment?”

Leliana looks at the two, her eyes darting almost imperceptibly between them.  Everything about her posture is stern, from the stiff set of her shoulders to the stony blockade in her gaze that allows no insight to what she might possibly desire.  Renata finds it hard to look away, but more so not to bite her lip in worry.  What could Leliana possibly want with her?

Cullen frowns – well, Renata _assumes_ that he is frowning, though it is difficult to tell with how often he does so – and shifts his weight from one foot to the other, apparently uncomfortable.  “Of course, Leliana.  I have a few communications to attend to before we meet anyhow,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck.  His other hand rests atop the pommel of his blade.  “Another time, perhaps, Lady Trevelyan?”

Renata finds herself smiling, even if faintly, as she nods.  “Until then, Commander.”  She watches Cullen march back toward the camps just outside Haven’s gates, posture as rigid as a soldier’s.  There were some things, she supposes, that simply could not be forgotten, muscle memory unfailing no matter how much of an ex the ex-Templar was.

It would seem Leliana had been watching as well.  When he has gone far enough to be out of immediate earshot, she turns to the other woman, brows drawn down.  Although she is frowning, the tilt of her lips suggests less that she is angry and more that something has given her cause to be concerned.  “I just came from a meeting with Lead Scout Harding.  She returned from the Hinterlands with…interesting news.”  Each word she speaks is calculated, a sort of cautious phrasing that does precisely what it is meant to prevent.

 “Is everything alright?”

“Mother Giselle arrived safely,” Leliana assures her.  “I am more concerned about _you._ ”

Briefly, Renata wonders if the spymaster could hear her as she struggles to swallow inconspicuously.  “Whatever for?  I’m right here, aren’t I?”

The redhead inhales sharply through her nose, full lips compacted into a thin line.  “Yes, of course.  The news is less of what you did and more of what you _almost_ did.”  She pauses, fixing Renata with a heavy stare before continuing, “Scout Harding tells me that in the initial skirmish with the rebel mages and Templars you struggled in aiming your bow.”

_I had been hoping to forget that, actually._ She says nothing, only stares as a sense of immense guilt bears down on her.  It manifests as a scarlet hue crawling up from beneath her collar – she can feel it start its way along her cheeks as Leliana continues.

“Normally I would chalk that up to a spot of bad luck – we all miss our marks, from time to time.  But when I asked Cassandra what happened for a second opinion, she informed me that you nearly shot her in the leg.”  She crosses her arms, the action expectant.  The spymaster may not have phrased a question in her response but she may as well have.

Renata wills her face to stop burning.  “I apologized,” she tries, voice weak.  Something tells her even giving an answer was unnecessary, that the other woman likely knew this fact already.

Leliana snorts, but the noise is a poor mimicry of laughter.  It is the sort that mocks and scoffs, that which only serves to worsen the Herald’s guilt and shame further.  “Apologies are meaningless if someone ends up dead because you never told anyone you don’t have any experience aiming a bow.”  Her tone is cutting, cold and heavy with the reality it presents to her.

At any moment, she could have been a liability.  To herself, and to others.  She could have gotten someone hurt.

Just a little higher, a little more to the left, and she could have killed Cassandra.  Nicked her right in the throat, her blood running free from the open wound, final words an unintelligible gurgle.  But she would have stared up at her killer, accusatory, and known that all along her suspicions were correct – she was just blaming the right woman for the wrong murder.

What could she say to that?  Was there anything at all that would have meaning beyond the sake of decorum?  So she remained silent, hugging herself tight around the middle.  The air seemed just a bit colder, the mountain air thinner in that quiet moment.  In the distance the Inquisition’s soldiers beat their shields and swords in a mockery of combat.  They were learning how to fight, as much to serve the Inquisition as to protect themselves.  Neither was possible without the other.

The spymaster lets out a sigh, a softer noise that startles Renata with its very sudden difference from the disposition of the stone-faced woman before her.  But she had quickly learned that Leliana was a series of juxtaposed contradictions on display in a single person.  Just when the world thought her merciless and cruel, she would display an as-of-yet unknown compassion for the weak and downtrodden.  Not a single person that believed in the Chantry’s teachings was quite like Leliana, who so readily came to the defense of the mages despite her not being one, and made not a single excuse for their abuse by the same institution for which she worked.  “You will continue to be a danger to yourself and others unless you receive training.  I have cleared some time in my schedule this afternoon to give you a few pointers, but Cassandra and I agree that more will have to be done in order to keep you safe while out in the field.  At least until such a point when your lessons prove you an adequate archer.”

Renata lets out a breath, ducking her head in a show of respect.  “Thank you,” she breathes, meeting Leliana’s steady gaze with as much sincerity as she can manage.  “And I am sorry for not telling you sooner.  With everything happening so quickly, I just…didn’t know how to say it.”

“You can thank me by paying attention during your lesson later.”  Though Leliana’s words are somewhat of a dismissal, the teasing lilt to their delivery gives Renata enough of a clue as to ascertain that no real offense is intended by them.  Instead, it would seem that the other woman is teasing her.  Perhaps she did not accept the proffered thanks in word, but beneath that she seems to understand that Renata’s intentions were never to deceive maliciously.  A woman like Leliana does not tease someone out of cruelty – there are better reasons to use a dagger than a petty grudge.  “Until then, business as usual.  I believe Josephine wished to speak with us in the war room.”

She had an idea of what this was about, but could only wonder why such a discussion could not wait until morning.  “Whatever does the Ambassador want to discuss?”

Leliana smiles faintly at the young Lady Trevelyan, gesturing back toward Haven.  “Shall we find out?”

 

The ambassador is waiting for them when they arrive in the war room, chatting idly with Cullen and Cassandra on either side of the long oak table on which their massive map is rested.  Her lips pull up into a pretty smile as she spots the two missing pieces to their meeting slipping through the heavy door, iron rivets squealing with the effort of pressing it shut after they have filed in.  Leliana slinks around the table to stand opposite of Renata, giving Cassandra a polite nods as she passes the short-haired woman.

Shortly after meeting her, Renata had decided that she liked the Inquisition’s ambassador.  Josephine Montilyet was of a respectable name, possessing the necessary grace and charm that any noblewoman would need in spades – particularly for an ambassador, so involved in the games of those that moved the world as she was.  She dressed herself in silken gold fabric draped by a royal blue brocaded smock, held together with a simple leather band around her middle, while her dark hair was always done up in an immaculately braided bun set low at the base of her skull.  It was doubtful that she would ever be seen in a state less than polished, always the perfect picture of a woman of her station.  Even the way in which she wrote was done with second-natured poise, hand moving with every dip and curve in her doubtlessly elegant script across the seemingly endless stack of paper on the portable desktop cradled in her forearm.

A warm greeting, after everything that had unfolded, was just what Renata needed.  Meeting Josephine had been a breath of fresh air, another rational soul amidst a growing storm of warfare.  Today she inspires the same sense of calm with the honest curiosity in her greeting.  “Lady Trevelyan, there you are!  How have you been this morning?”

“Well, thank you.”  She would have answered differently, but Renata’s mouth formed her response on reflex.  “And you, Ambassador Montilyet?  Busy as ever?”

“Whatever Josephine has been working on is apparently a well-kept secret.”  Leliana scowls playfully at the woman next to her.  “She has told us very little, in fact.”

“I did not wish to say anything before I was certain the plans wouldn’t fall through.  It would hardly be worth mentioning were they little more than an ‘almost.’”  Josephine’s cheeks flush just slightly, as though embarrassed by the idea that she might do such a thing.

“I believe the more pressing issue is the Chantry,” Cassandra cuts in.  “Commander Cullen tells me that Chancellor Roderick paid us a visit.  _Again._ ”

Renata takes a moment to be grateful that she was not forced to deal with him and takes another for pitying Cullen.  The man had not the patience for dealing with Roderick’s heckling, and far more important matters.  “This is just going to get out of hand if we ignore it, isn’t it?”

“Having the Herald address the clerics is not a terrible idea.”  Josephine does not look about the room, but settles her sly expression on Cullen across from her.  The commander is most likely to be the biggest critic of her plans.  Whatever it is she wants from this encounter, it is a safe bet that he will respond disfavorably.

As predicted, Cullen’s pale features draw into a scowl.  “You can’t be serious!”  The presence of his voice seems to double as the chamber’s high ceilings pick up the volume, echoing with the force of two speakers.  He gesticulates with one hand, flicking it out to one side in an attempt to work off some of his irritation in a manner that is more acceptable than shouting.

Renata sighs internally and begins to settle in for a drawn-out argument about the merits of diplomacy.

The ambassador pulls her brows downward, though her face remains near-perfectly schooled into one of neutrality.  It is the picture of a person convinced of their correctness.  “Mother Giselle isn’t wrong.  At the moment, the only strength the Chantry has is its united opinion.”

Leliana takes this moment to add her opinion, at precisely the same time Cullen paces a small circle around his usual position at the table.  Her hands are folded behind her back as she asks, “And we should ignore the danger to the Herald?”

“Let’s ask her,” Josephine suggests, turning expectantly to face her.

Briefly, Renata considers reminding them that she finds the title distasteful.  If they were still using it despite her stating as much earlier, she doubted it would do any good.  “I see what you’re trying to do, Lady Montilyet,” she begins, folding one arm and resting her elbow against the soft glow emanating from the scar on her palm.  “I don’t disagree, but is there any guarantee that this won’t backfire?”

“It’s not as though the Inquisition can suffer much worse than the derision the Chantry has already paid us,” she replies.  “All they have heard of you is rumor and hearsay.  Let them see that you are a person willing to speak civilly, and the clerics might change their minds.  If not, the people may.  Their opinion could give us opportunities for alternative alliances.”

Josephine made a good point.  Renata could hardly argue with it, even if she wanted to.  It was a strange feeling, to be scorned by the religion that she grew up understanding as a place where all could find acceptance.  More so when she did not support the claim that she was some sort of…stand-in for Andraste, or whatever it was the Chantry thought of her.  How could she think of herself as that?  How could anyone be so arrogant as to be assured that they possessed the importance of a god?

“You assume too much of their good will.”  Leliana’s frown is deep, eyes dark with the probable outcomes unfolding before her.  She reveals only a fraction of the painful deaths that she predicted which is likely for the best.  Renata has already had enough difficulties sleeping from her last encounter with the rebel factions in the Hinterlands.  “An angry mob will do the Herald in just as quickly as a blade.”

“I will go with her.  Mother Giselle said she could provide names?  Use them.”  Cassandra steps forward as she addresses the spymaster, no doubt assuaging any concerns about Renata’s lack of competency in defending herself.  Though it offends her, she tries her best not to let it get out of control – the irritation is mostly aimed inward, the blame entirely on herself for never taking her father’s offers for martial training.  She had painted for herself a quiet lifestyle, one preferably spent as a professor at the University of Orlais, if she could convince her parents to allow it over service to the Chantry.  Or perhaps she would write.  But not once had she ever envisioned _this_.

Leliana does not seem to agree, however, if her response is anything to gauge her opinion from.  “But why?  This is nothing but a—”

The Seeker stops her short, voice slightly raised.  “What choice do we have, Leliana?  Right now we can’t approach anyone for help with the Breach!”  There is no room for argument, and Cassandra does not seem to think she will be met with any, as she turns to Cullen next and tells him, “Use what influence we have to call the clerics together.  Once they are ready, we will see this through.”

Josephine smirks subtly over her papers as she jots down a note, no doubt pleased to have won a victory over their skeptical commander.  “Excellent.  I shall make the preparations immediately.”  To his credit, Cullen does not seem overly displeased.  His expression is mildly sour, no worse than what Renata might expect his reaction would be to someone telling him that his hair was a mess.

“We will have to hire a ferry out of Highever to take us to Val Royeaux,” Cassandra adds as she leans over the table, pointing at the coastal Ferelden town with two taps of her index finger.  “Waiting for a writ of passage would consume time that we do not have.”

If anything, Josephine only grows smugger.  Her smirk curls into a full grin that sets her eyes aglow, a prideful thing that is more than likely justified.  The ambassador does not seem the sort to pat herself on the back for any small achievement.  “This brings me to the second reason for our meeting.  I believe the ferry will be unnecessary, Seeker Pentaghast.  Provided you all approve, of course.”

When the gathering of founders and one woman of quasi-significance have turned their attention to her expectantly, she continues, “Leliana suggested that it might be wise to search for allies in other places.  It was difficult without any concrete connections in the royal court, but I managed to procure an audience with the Queen of the Dales to discuss the possibility of an alliance.  Her Majesty has asked for you by name, Lady Trevelyan.”

Renata’s lips part, stunned as she is by Josephine’s news.  _Why would the Queen want to speak with the person everyone’s calling the Herald of Andraste?_   “How did you get the Dalish Queen to agree to a meeting with an organization founded by the Divine?”

“As I said, it was not particularly easy,” Josephine says as she balances her clipboard on her hip, shifting her weight onto that side.  “Mentioning that an old friend of the Hero of Ferelden was one of its founding members must have caught someone’s attention.  The response after was almost comically warm in comparison to their previous replies.”  She glances at Leliana, then, who smiles back at her.  Or maybe she smiles to remember someone so dear to her.  In a brief conversation Leliana once mentioned that she knew Warden Mahariel, and Renata had startled upon realizing that the faraway look to those dark blue eyes of hers was dreamily reminiscent, daresay soft, as she daydreamed of times that seemed easier in retrospect.

“Is this so wise?”  Cullen shifts forward, his lips forming a thin, straight line as he regards the others in the war room.  “Courting the Dalish isn’t exactly going to draw an ecstatic reaction from the Chantry.”

Their ambassador does not seem to share his opinion, however.  “This alliance will take time to form.  I am sure they will be nothing less than painstaking about its parameters.  The initial meeting will, to the rest of Thedas, appear to be a mere petition for the movement of Inquisition troops through the Dales.  For all intents and purposes it may as well be.”

“Ambassador Montilyet is right.”  Cullen seems to wish to protest further, but Cassandra does not have the patience for circular arguments this meeting.  “We cannot afford to be picky, Commander.  The Breach goes beyond the Chantry.  If this is so difficult for them to accept, then we must be prepared to make do with more willing allies.”  She turns her attention to Josephine, crosses her arms.  “I will assume you have the writ?”

Josephine procures the document from her stack of papers with a flourish, holding it out for the Herald.  Renata takes it carefully, her fingers skimming across the dried ink as she attempts to read it.  The script does not reveal anything to her other than a lack of knowledge on the elven language.

“Good.  We will leave tomorrow morning.  If there is no further business…”  The Seeker trails off, pausing to scan the room for objections to adjournment.  “That will be all, then.”  Cassandra gives the four a curt nod before turning on her heel and disappearing through the iron-riveted door, squealing behind her as she returns to the small camp outside Haven’s gates and to the familiar routine of her training exercises.  Leliana is quick to follow her, though she excuses herself more quietly, offering a polite farewell to her colleagues.

As Josephine passes her, she taps Renata’s shoulder, turning her attention away from Cullen, who was studying a single point on the map with an unfocused gaze.  Did the commander daydream, she wondered?  “When you’ve the time, I have some things to review with you before your departure tomorrow that should be of use to the negotiations.  Please stop by at your convenience.”  Renata dips her head politely, making to follow the Antivan out into the vast, long hallway of Haven’s Chantry.  She was certain it would make a nice reprieve from the stressful lesson fated for her this evening.

Cullen and Renata reach the narrow doorway at approximately the same time – were it not for the both of them stopping abruptly, they would have slammed together.  The metal of the commander’s chestplate, draped though it may be in soft furs and cloth, does not look to be a very forgiving surface.  “Oh!”  He begins so eloquently, rubbing at the short hairs on his neck.  Renata smiles slyly at his reaction, how a man like Cullen can misplace all of his distinctive authority and replace it with the confidence of a sheep facing down a wolf.  “I didn’t see you there, I was so distracted.  My apologies, Lady Trevelyan.”

“It’s no trouble,” she chuckles, shaking her head.

Neither says anything for a painfully long few seconds, though Renata expects him to.  Perhaps she should have thought otherwise.  He goes between looking at her and looking anywhere else but at her.  At last he seems to settle on something, as he gestures at the stone archway of the exit with a gloved hand.  “After you, I insist.”

She takes just a few steps forward before turning around to smile at him.  “Farewell, Commander.”

Cullen smiles back at her, the same slight one he used before, as though he was never quite sure if it was right to do so.  Or maybe he was not even aware that he was smiling at all.  “Safe travels.”

 

As it turned out, the reason for the writ of passage being in elven was for its readers, presumably to prove its authenticity.  Their caravan had been stopped abruptly at the border by a group of guards in silver armor and green surcoats, helmets ornate but ultimately featureless.  Cassandra handed the writ over with her usual calm, though Renata would admit to a sense of unease as one turned his head to stare at her in the back of the wooden cart.  He would not look away until the other two had sorted things out with the Seeker, when his comrades barked out a few orders in elvish and passed the writ back over to the Inquisition.  The caravan was allowed to pass without incident on its way to the elven capital.  Solas returned to his sleeping, Cassandra to reading surreptitiously.  Varric kept her entertained with increasingly outlandish tales of his misadventures with the Champion of Kirkwall, each delivered with a more wistful punchline than the last.

The approach to the palace was picturesque, Halamshiral’s architecture so uniquely elven.  Renata wishes dearly that they had the time to look around.  Every street is lined with tall buildings of stone, some with ivy winding up the sides, some with open balconies and windows higher than she has ever seen.  Quaint squares with sculpted fountains and busy market stalls called to her, the smell of fresh bread and herbs a temptation stronger than her dread at knowing what awaited her in Val Royeaux.

Though the city was mostly gray stone and earthen wood, it was broken up by trees taller than some storefronts.  Occasionally their roots snaked into the streets, disrupting the cobblestone roads and making it necessary to pay closer attention to where they walked.  This did not trouble her, though she did almost trip over one as she stared up at a statue of a deer-like creature with ornate antlers.  Varric caught her around the elbow, righting her stance with a sly wink that tempered her embarrassment to a tolerable level.

Even Solas, reserved as he was turning out to be, looked around with a curiosity more tempered than hers.  She caught him observing a group of children playing almost wistfully once, and giving a building with many tall towers in the distance a critical eye on another occasion.  “ _Var Sa’hamin’an_ ,” he comments as they draw close, “in elven it would mean ‘the place of our first rest.’”

Var Sahaminan is a vision, with its central dome and multiple towers, the pathway toward its entrance lined with ancient trees and arches covered in vines groomed carefully so as to not look overgrown.  Halfway down the long road the Grey Warden Garahel is memorialized in stone, the gold placard for its dedication etched in elvish.  Perhaps nothing was legible to her, but she wished to explore even knowing the language barrier existed.

They were permitted inside after a rather thorough examination by the guards stationed at the gates.  A retainer in a simple frock led them through a massive hallway easily a hundred times her height, her skirts swishing with every step toward the mahogany doors engraved with figures the Chantry would likely burn for heresy.

Outside the Dales, nobles spoke of the elven court as one would a repugnant distant cousin, some boorish and arrogant rabble that thought themselves beyond the short-lived humans.  Her Majesty’s throne room might have been finely decorated, but it was no finer than any seat of authority that Renata had been able to see, excepting perhaps the materials that formed its luxury.  Whereas Orlesians were fond of marble and stone, polished floors and gold-leafed chair frames, the details here came in the craftsmanship.  The pillars lining the far walls of the domed room were sown with exceedingly detailed chiseling of elven figures she could not even begin to name, as though each told a story she had never been told, no doubt the work of a single artist over many years.  They watch her dispassionately as she bows before the throne, bathed in a stream of afternoon sunlight from the circle of iron-wrought windows high above her head.  When she raises herself from the near-prostration, the Queen watches the human with a look of pleasant surprise, her fine brows raised at the distinctively elven gesture.  Renata reminds herself to thank Josephine when the return for teaching her such a greeting.

Queen Lanaya was precisely what Renata expected, and yet simultaneously the opposite.  She did not lounge with the assurance of her authority upon that intricately carved throne of wood, but sat upon its green upholstery and surveyed the party of visitors serenely, her hands folded atop her lap.  A staff was leaned against the stone wall behind her, always within arm’s reach.  Either side of her was bracketed by an Emerald Knight bearing a spear and shield, only the finest armor for the royal guard of their sovereign.  Behind them, the heraldry of the crown bloomed outward, a burst of gold embroidery reminiscent of branches woven together.  The hollows of those masks were as empty, as ever vigilant as their twin designs worked into the helms of her guardsmen.

She had met only a handful of Dalish in her lifetime, but those she had decorated their faces with ink of varying colors, burrowing it beneath their skin.  This was true even of their queen, black branches spread across her forehead interlinked like the twined fingers of a pair of lovers.  It was a stark display of her faith that she bore on her olive skin, as naturally as her pointed ears or her square jaw.  Even her beauty was plainly stated, the youthful look possessed of all her people, her ash brown hair done in a simple braid pinned up and coiled about her head.

“ _Andaran atish’an_ , agents of the Inquisition.”  The Queen does not smile when she greets her, but the smoothness of her voice is warm in its welcoming nonetheless.  Curiously, her voice lacks the accent she heard of the elves they passed in the streets.  She casts her gaze to Cassandra beside the Herald.  “It is rare that we have the occasion to greet humans in our halls, but even more so someone as distinguished as the Right Hand of the Divine.  My sympathies for her untimely passing.”

Cassandra gives a short bow of her head, her typically even tone broken by a nearly fictional tremor as she replies, “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Her Majesty crosses her legs below the knee in a delicate motion, barely shifting the velveteen fabric of her skirt as she did so.  “We have heard many things of the events surrounding her death.  Many of which include you, Lady Trevelyan.  I thought it odd that the Inquisition would hire a Chantry-declared murderer.  I wonder…”  She pauses, the corners of her full lips tugged downward for but a second.  “Were you aware that we sent observers to the Conclave?”

Renata sifts quickly through her memories, fractured as they may be, for any Dalish she might have overlooked.  All she could find were winding hallways and a dead man’s smiling face.  Her stomach curls in on itself, the memory of his echoing laughter sickening her.  She swallows against the threat of bile that seizes her throat.  “I’m afraid I did not meet any.”

“A pity.  I had hoped someone might be able to identify their bodies, so that they might be interred as our traditions call.”  The Queen lets out a soft sigh with her first sentence, sorrow plaguing her features.  “I sent them so that we might learn what your Chantry planned to do about this war.  You see, there have been a number of troubles that came from it – mages fleeing to us for sanctuary, Templars chasing after them.  The violence along the borders is a constant strain on my resources.  We may not hold the same beliefs, but the Conclave gave us hope here, as well.”

“And then the sky tore open,” Renata supplied.

A nod, just a brief dip of the head, her eyes downcast.  “Yes.”  She looks up from her hands to regard the Herald with a serious expression, one tinged with such worry that it inspires a small pang of sympathy within her.  “Reports from my Knights pour in by the day, each reporting one or more rifts spawning spirits.  Most are remote, but a few less so.  Our Keepers cannot find a way to seal them, no matter what magic they cast.  I worry for what I can do to help my people.  But if the rumors are true…they say that you can seal these tears in the Veil.  Is this true?”

She glances at her scarred hand, bound in supple leather as it is.  When she strips it from the protective glove and proffers it up for the Queen’s inspection, it gives off an answering glow, as if to show that its magic runs strong trapped within her.  “This mark, whatever may have caused it, has sealed rifts before.  I may not know how it works, but I know what it can do.”

“Remarkable.”  The Queen’s lips part gently around the whispered word, her fascination with the mark leading her to lean forward slightly where she sits.  Next to her the guards tense minutely, their grips tightening around the shafts of their spears.  Renata only notices because she was looking for it.  At their obvious discomfort – and because, in truth it discomforts her, too – she slips her hand back into the glove so carefully crafted by Harritt.  Her Majesty leans back against her throne, perhaps remembering the propriety that is required of her station.  “I would ask you a number of questions if I could, but it sounds as though you would not be able to answer them.  It is no matter – I am sure you have more immediate concerns than indulging my curiosities.”

“Ambassador Montilyet had mentioned that you were interested in negotiating an alliance,” Renata reminds her.  She is sure it is unnecessary, but this _does_ sound like a more immediate concern.  And she would rather not think on the thing currently grafted to her hand, let alone that she cannot explain it.  “I believe I speak on behalf of all that we would welcome any aid you might give in our attempts to seal the Breach.  It threatens elves and humans alike.”

Queen Lanaya lets out another sigh, this time one of irritation.  It is a rather mild sound, and no anger shows directly on her face.  Nor does it then ring in her words as she speaks, “As I am aware.  However, it will take time to convince my people to work with an organization such as yours.  You may not be tied to the Chantry, but that is not what they will see.  I cannot risk unrest while the Dales are overrun with spirits.  I am sorry, but this must move slowly.”

She carefully schools her expression into a look bordering more closely to neutral.  It is disappointing, but unsurprising.  Josephine had said it would take time, after all.  “Is there anything we could do to help the process move faster?”

“The People respect deeds more than words, Lady Trevelyan.  A promise can be broken, but once a deed is done, it can be nothing more than the truth of someone’s character.”  The Queen leans over the span of her armrest to murmur something in elvish to the guard standing on her left.  He gives a nod of assent before marching off, greaves clicking with every footfall that carries him off to a side door made of a dark, heavy wood.  Another guard comes to stand in his place from her original position within the room, nearly indistinguishable beneath the standard of her station.  “While I cannot spare many, a small detachment of Emerald Knights can be provided to help in the training of your forces.  I can provide a permanent writ of passage to the Inquisition so that it might move through the Dales more expediently.”  She smiles slyly at Renata, a twinkle in her eyes as she adds, “And of course, if your soldiers just happened to be of use while passing through areas affected by these rifts, well…I am certain my vassals would be grateful.”

_Clever._   That Queen Lanaya promises anything at all convinces Renata that she is serious about her intent to ally with the Inquisition.  Even this, while small, was more than anything given to them thus far.  Where no one else was willing, this small, concrete act of intention was enough to give her hope.  “The Inquisition cannot thank you enough for this, Your Majesty.”

As she raises her head from a grateful bow, Renata hears the side door open once more, along with the familiar click of metal greaves as the guard from before makes his reentrance.  Behind him trails another guard – however, this one’s armor is different.  He wears the same spaulders, gauntlets and breastplate of a silvery metal that looks almost wet with its unusual gloss, but his legs are protected by thick leather greaves, unlike his compatriot, making his footsteps near silent.  Beneath the breastplate is a simple surcoat, the color of leaves on a cloudy day, embroidered with touches of silver.  And beneath that, a layer of chainmail of the same material as his armor.  Both layers slant open enough for mobility, but trail behind him in long coattails that come to a pointed end where the backs of his knees transition into his calves.  His shoulders are swaddled in soft cloth of a matching color as his surcoat, the back adorned with the heraldry of the Dalish sovereign.

Most shocking is the dog that keeps pace with him – _wolf_ , she corrects herself.  The canid is roughly the same height as a mabari, the tips of its ears reaching the newcomer’s hip, but possessed of a leaner build, its snout narrower.  Its pelt begins from the back as a dark, peppery gray that transitions neatly down to a clean white encompassing its undercarriage right down to each paw.

The guards change back to their original posts as the nameless elf approaches the throne.  When he stands before the Queen, back to the Inquisition agents, he dips into a more practiced version of the bow Josephine had taught her, complete with a flourishing gesture of the arm that leaves the palm held skyward, as though proffered to his liege.  His head is hung low enough that his ashen blond hair swings partially over his shoulder.  Were she not before a foreign queen, Renata might have chuckled when the wolf bowed its head as well.

Her Majesty gives the elven man a fond look, just barely containing a smile as she gestures for her subject to stand.  “You may rise, _Mirthadra_.”  He complies, stepping lightly with his arms folded neatly behind his back until he stands beside his sovereign’s throne.  Every step of the way the wolf follows with the faithfulness of a shadow.  Now facing them, Renata can see that he is pale, face tattooed extensively with brown ink.  She could not even begin to guess at their meaning.  “Lady Trevelyan, I would like to introduce you to Ser Galenhel of the Order of the Emerald.  I have asked him here because I wish for him to assist your Inquisition.”

“ _Andaran atish’an_ ,” he offers as he bends slightly at the waist, pressing one palm over his heart while the other mimics the gesture from earlier.  Though he does not hold the sign of respect as he did with Queen Lanaya, it is no doubt of significance that a human would receive such a thing at all.  “I am honored to have the opportunity to work for such a worthy goal as the Inquisition possesses.”  Every word is accented by the Dalish brogue that his sovereign lacks.

“He has been my most reliable Emerald Knight, and an irreplaceable friend, for many years now.”  Her smile widens, as though she is recalling a time now gone, hinting at a moment fondly remembered with vague speech.  “If my opinion does nothing to convince you of his worth to the Inquisition, before swearing his service to me Ser Galenhel was a dedicated Fade Hunter – those who spend their days hunting down mage criminals and spirits.  He has many more years of experience than the average warrior with the foes you face.”

She looks at this elf, this Ser Galenhel, and his sharp features – a straight nose, a strong jaw, eyes sharp and alert even at a state of relative ease.  There are scars across his face as evidence of battles lost and won, untold stories carved into his skin.  He exudes calm; experience most of all, in the absolute stillness of his posture.  They could use another person who seemed to know what they were doing.  Most of all if they had any idea how to kill demons.

Renata turns to Cassandra.  _Just to be certain._   The Seeker gives a little huff of irritation before nodding her head in assent.

With that assurance provided, she offers the Emerald Knight a friendly smile.  “The Inquisition would be blessed to have you, Ser Galenhel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Var Sahaminan - Translated as "the place of our first rest," this is the name of the Dalish sovereign's palace in Halamshiral  
> Andaran atish'an - A formal elvish greeting  
> Mirthadra - Elvish for "honored," in this context used as an honorific given to an Emerald Knight; equivalent to Ser
> 
> My apologies for posting this several days late. The next chapter may be a bit delayed as well, but I'll try to get back on schedule for mid-week updates after. As always, thank you so much for your support and readership!


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